


Maggie and Alex Across History -- Vikings Edition

by kissmyaxequeen91



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Babies, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Babies, Biting, F/F, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Gen, Girl Penis, Helping Slaves Escape, Impregnation, Knotting, Maggie and Alex's Pregnancy and Relationship are Consensual, Magic, Marking, Mentions of Rape in Unnamed Characters, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Nonconsensual Marriages, Nonconsensual Pregnancies, Other, Play Fighting, Pregnancy, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:40:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 28,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24092995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissmyaxequeen91/pseuds/kissmyaxequeen91
Summary: Maggie was captured and brought to a Viking village as a child.Alex is the daughter of a half-Viking and a captive omega who (1) helps take care of all children who were captured and brought to the camp and (2) prepares captured omegas for mating and pregnancy.Alex has fallen in love with Maggie and wants to buy her freedom so they can be together, and Maggie has fallen for the kind and caring pale warrior-healer over the years. However, neither has disclosed or acted her feelings for the other.Until now, that is.Multi-chapter story on these two confessing and acting on their feelings in an alternative universe. Fluff, feelings, and smut up ahead. :)P.S. I don't know Viking language, but have pulled other examples of inspiration from what I've read about that group. Made-up terms are my own, but the characters are not.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Maggie Sawyer, Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 24
Kudos: 85





	1. Chapter One

_ Some time between the late 8th century and the late 11th century.  _

Maggie had been separated from her mother at the tender age of seven and kept in a camp for children captured by the Vikings who’d pillaged their land, spears, shields, and seaxes (utility knives) ablazing. 

Since then, alphas of her village and others had generally been killed to prevent them from challenging the Vikings’ hold on everyone. The rest were put to work on the fields and seas alongside their beta friends, acquaintances, and family (who, as needed, were also trained as war healers and horse trainers). In exchange for those “services” (really, their slavery), both groups typically received rations and educations which were meager at best and absent at worst (usually in the face of resistance or poor performance). Many did not survive the grueling winters, wars, harvesting seasons, and other trials of being a Viking captive.

Oppositely, omegas like Maggie and her mother had been well-fed, sufficiently educated, and trained to take care of berserkers’ children, the idea being that they would be sold to the highest bidder in a game serving as tribute to Thor (the Norse god of war). Many would be traded for a mix of hallucinogenic war drugs, coins, livestock, next-generation marriage promises, long-term trade deals, horns full of beer and mead, and nights with Vikings who wanted to “break them in” before sealing further deals. A few would even be fought over in hand-to-hand or weaponized combat in front of the crowd, the winner taking the omega and (if the opponent died) all of the loser’s property (wives, concubines, mistresses, homestead, money, and livestock included). 

For years, the mentally as well as physically swift girl had been afraid of turning sixteen, getting her first heat, and entering the game because she’d seen what so many of her friends and acquaintances had gone through. Some had been impregnated against their wills while onstage, naked, cold, open, torn, knotted, and bleeding for all the crowd to see, only to die later on while giving birth to first babies who were much too large or numerous to be born normally. Others had been killed on sight for resisting their lots, and some went on to have and raise handfuls to dozens of unwanted children. Most of the rest had been sold to hoards of similarly greasy, large alpha men or the rarer yet equally menacing and wild-eyed alpha women (who would do gods knew what to the omegas later on when nobody else was around). 

The only thing -- person -- keeping the olive-skinned and brown-eyed girl from poisoning herself while nobody was looking was Alex, the sweet, rebellious, protective, and ever-curious daughter of one of the kinder camp guards as well as the village’s head of pregnancy and childbirth operations. The rare female alpha product of an even more rare happy arranged marriage. In-the-flesh evidence of how love could exist between a captured omega (Eliza) and a Viking alpha (Jeremiah, the product of a rape whose captured mother had killed his Viking rapist of a father, but loved him up until the moment she was killed for her “transgressions”). 

In the best of ways, the auburn-haired and snow-skinned girl didn’t fall far from the tree. Her parents had been so sympathetic to the captives’ situation that they would frequently find secret ways to buck Viking practices, including falsely claiming omegas had died on the delivery table and smuggling them into places they could be free via animal hide, blood-leaking body bags. To cover their tracks, they sometimes had to keep the babies who’d survived the births behind and give them back to their Viking relatives or, in some cases, place them in the camps with the captive children until someone adopted them. Alex’s sister, Kara, had been the only child her subversive parents had been able to adopt; between her powers and Alex’s, and considering their jobs, the parents were more than fulfilled children-wise. 

Over years of studying, playing, eating, looking out at the seas and stars, hunting, exploring the woods, and knife as well as hand fighting, Maggie had slowly fallen for Alex (who held her close to her naked heart and rocked her back and forth after each night, especially after a terrible round of the Thor-honoring game was over). The olive-skinned captive just couldn’t get enough of how sweet the girl was to her and everyone in the camp, especially the children with no parents or older relatives to look out for them. 

While Maggie listened and watched from afar, the young lighting bender would teach the children how to play different games and apply clever survival skills. 

When the duo was alone, and especially on nights when it rained, the pale hero would also talk at length about finding the omegas her parents had freed and mobilizing them to take over the generally rancid and cruelty-filled Viking village. To allow everyone to be free again and discover who they truly were inside. 

However, the main thing holding the atypical alpha back up until this year was that she needed to grow bigger, stronger, faster, more skilled at fighting, and taller to take on her rugged and generally ruthless competitors. She wanted to become all of those things to free the captives, but to also win Maggie’s heart and lot in the game happening after their sixteenth birthdays. 

Alex knew early on that Maggie would be one of the most expensive “prizes” won whenever she was forced into the simultaneously god-forsaken and god-honoring bidding game. After all, the girl was naturally beautiful, smart, maternal, strong enough to break wood, and a balance of lean and supple. Alex would have to financially and/or physically face off with several formidable contenders, so she worked as often and long as she could. 

She didn’t have the money to buy Maggie’s freedom because her parents used most of their leftovers to fund their escape project (which the girls were not allowed to be involved in yet), but she did earn some by going around the village and providing medical and protective services when her parents couldn’t. Her services in “widening” (preparing omegas’ openings for sex and childbirth) were especially called upon; those were the few times many of the omegas were touched with dignity and respect as well as ways to prevent Vikings’ “property” (omega “prizes” and older children as well as babies) from falling damaged or dead. 

However, there was one thing she definitely would not -- and, due to her being pre-rut, could not -- do for money. No matter how many omegas tried to bribe her with considerably more coins (usually stolen over time from their alphas), she couldn’t and wouldn’t mate them so their alphas wouldn’t be able to mate them for awhile or ever again. Although sympathetic to their plights and otherwise available to help, she couldn’t bear the thought of never being openly involved with her kids, whether it happened per the omega leaving via the escape project, the babies staying with other families, or something else. That, and she felt too loyal to Maggie to do it. Even though they hadn’t confessed their feelings for each other, the teen’s penis (which was blue-tipped, blue-veined, and blue-sacked due to her being struck by Thor’s lightning as a child) yearned to be inside and mate just her love. 

Fortunately, as Maggie and Alex were training together the last afternoon before game day, their first heat and rut started, giving the budding warriors the chance to be together in ways they yearned for. Both could smell each other’s change when hugging as they usually did, but they struggled to let go all the more this time; their scents were deliciously heady and addictive, leaving them (not so) secretively hot and wanting. 

To make their duel more interesting and respond to their bodies’ changes, they placed a bet on the fight’s outcome: the winner would get whatever she asked for. Both confident in their abilities, yet wanting to make their feelings known somehow, Maggie asked Alex to be her first  _ innirven _ (person inside her) if the raven-haired teen won. Though used to requests like hers, Alex felt ecstatic on the inside when hearing it, then asked Maggie to be her  _ fivernan _ (first kiss). Maggie felt elated as well at the question and couldn’t stop showing those beautiful dimples while tucking her hair behind one ear and blushing at the ground, looking up at Alex for just seconds before starting at the dark and damp earth under their feet and repeating the cycle until mustering up the concentration to start the fight. 


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment below and on the previous chapter to tell me what you think. I really love getting to know and engage with readers, and I do take requests for changes and pieces into consideration. Still am working on two other works, though, so please be patient with me response-wise. :)

As hours passed, the battle between them proved very intense. Each ended up bleeding some, bruised, sweaty, sore, very much aroused, and heavy-lidded by the end of the three rounds (hand-to-hand, knife, and spear with shield). Both were also getting clumsier as evening turned into starry night, such that, by the end of the last round, they tripped and fell onto each other, Alex ending up on top and accidentally knocking the wind out of her love. 

After her gasps for air turned shallower and Alex apologized profusely amid her haze, Maggie joined their foreheads for a moment while closing her eyes and rubbing her love’s upper back, wanting them to just enjoy the sounds of their breaths and the surrounding silence for a time. Then, after moving her chin back some and opening her eyes to search for any sign of hesitancy, the raven-haired soulmate slowly lifted her hands from her love’s back to gently cup the sides of her auburn-haired head. She was mesmerized by the small streaks of blue lighting which were shining in Alex’s rut-changed ones as well as how close their faces were, even as cold rain and rumbling thunder started around them. 

Done with fighting and waiting to make the move which counted the most, she brushed muddy and soaked auburn hair back, pulled Alex in close with the backs of her tan and lead-heavy legs, and went in for a first tentative, soft, and rain-streaked kiss.

Alex wanted to tell Maggie she didn’t have to do this. 

She really did.

The young warrior-healer hadn’t truly won the fight, and she didn’t want her best friend to feel beholden to her for any reason, whether she was partly Viking by blood or not.

However, she couldn’t bring herself to stop her tender yet tough brown-eyed love. 

She was powerless to do that. 

Powerless to resist the force of her feelings rising to the surface of her eyes, lips, tongue, fingers, hands, hips, knees, toes, and sex. 

Powerless to keep her powers from stirring up lightning and thunder in the distance (which grew closer and more intense as their kiss grew more wet, hot, confident, desperate, and aggressive).

Especially as Maggie started moaning louder and audibly panting into their kisses, rocking her hips against Alex’s lower half, and pulling her love impossibly closer into her.

Lightning struck just a few miles away as Alex started losing more control, making the thunder, their heartbeats, and their needs generously louder. Maggie’s self-restraint broke, and she swiftly reached for and started undoing the ties to Alex’s armor, nervous yet focused fingers flying as she did. Once it fell off into the mud with a squelching thud, the brave of heart hurriedly started loosening the ties on her own armor and pants. She curled Alex’s right middle and index finger some after taking her shaking and wet yet willing hand, then went in for a more passionate and hungry kiss, slowly easing her love inside her waiting heat as they crashed against each other. 

Alex started pumping her fingers into Maggie’s warmth, determined to make her come first through slow and gentle strokes which she intended to make faster, harder, and deeper over time. Though loving how it made her feel, Maggie was deeply confused by the action; she thought Alex was just going to “widen” her like she did numerous girls in the village, then flip her onto her back and just rut her into the mud like Viking custom typically involved. Not sure what was happening, she unconsciously tensed up, leading Alex to tense up as well and stop to look up from devouring her love’s scent gland with her lips and tongue.

Not knowing why Alex stopped, Maggie felt very insecure and vulnerable all of a sudden, leading her to ask a question she wasn’t sure she wanted a truthful answer to.

“Am I not as good as the other girls you’ve widened and been with before?”

Alex gave a confused and sympathetic look in response to the question, then took her love’s hand, turned it wrist-side against her, gently kissed a light brown and smooth palm, and cupped the bridge of her nose with it. Turning to face her love while cupping her cheek with the outstretched light brown hand, she softly said some of the most sincere things she’d ever felt.

“No matter what anyone in the village has said, I’ve never been with anyone, especially any of the omegas I’ve widened. You’re all I thought of while tending to them. The only reason I could -- and did -- tend to them. I’ve been doing it to buy your freedom . . . so we could be together forever, if you wanted. You’re the only one who makes my . . . _gunnaragen_ . . . feel alive. Who makes _me_ feel this alive. I’m not like most other Vikings; I can’t just get hard and penetrate anyone or anything on demand, especially to be cruel and display superiority. You’re the only one who . . . has _ever_ made . . . who _can_ make . . . me feel . . . this way.”

Alex said the last line while taking the hand formerly cupping her cheek, turning it over, guiding it down, and gingerly placing the weight of her still-concealed bulge into it. While both of them started crying, closing their eyes again, and touching the bridges of their noses at the sentiment of it all, Alex kept going, despite her voice breaking a few times.

“I know you don’t really like _gunnaragens_ because of everything you’ve seen when the game has been played, so I didn’t want to . . . force . . . you. Or assume you wanted to be taken the . . . traditional way. Especially in the mud, face down. Like a slave. Like you were being . . . raped . . . by one of _them_. I just can’t do that to you, Maggie. I want to clean you with my rainbucket invention, braid your hair with clover flowers from the woods, rub ripe blackberries’ essence all over you, and see your face when we’re together. I want to make love to you where we’re near a fire, on a bed which is ours alone, and under warm furs. The secret hiding place where I see Luna and the rest of the wolfpack. The place which no one else dares to approach. Even if you never want my knot or pups inside you, or love me the same way I love you.”

Maggie broke at how thoughtful, sincere, kind, brave, and open her love was, shuddering as she ugly cried into her love’s chest. Once she burrowed in some more and gathered a little resolve, she mumbled into Alex’s still-clad chest, then said it again because her love struggled to hear her over the softer yet still-rumbling thunder.

“I want it.”

Not sure what Maggie meant, the young warrior and healer asked, “Want _what_ , my love?”

Gathering all her courage, and wiping her eyes because of and despite the rain pouring on them, she gave her answer.

“Your knot. In me. Tonight. And however long we’re together.”

Happy, yet hesitant to show it and unsure of what Maggie’s intentions were, Alex vulnerably asked, “So you can get pregnant and finally escape via the program my parents set up?”

Maggie couldn’t help but reach out and cup her love’s face again, then stroke her sweaty, wet, and slightly less muddy hair while coming clean.

“We have no idea how long we will be on this earth. Still, I want to feel your pups growing inside me and raise them together while we are. Because I love you, too, Alex. I have for a long time.”

At those words, Alex burst out crying, raised herself onto her haunches while bringing her love into a similar vertical position on top of her lap, and held the backs of her thighs while crashing their lips together once more. After processing the sudden change, Maggie started feverishly kissing Alex back, grinding down on the outline of her _gunnaragen_ and pushing her love down onto the ground again. The raven-haired and soaked as well as sweaty and muddied-up teen attacked her love’s scent gland, palming and rubbing her clearly bulging yet still-clothed groin while doing so.

“Hi-hi-hideaway h-h-hollow,” Alex barely managed to stammer out, overwhelmed by the feelings of what Maggie was doing to her. 

Maggie tilted up the teen’s face, prompting her to open her hazy eyes and see her love’s face once more. 

“After I mark you as mine,” she said with a raspy voice, clearly in need and wanting to communicate her love in more new, intimate ways. 

Alex rapidly nodded her head and showed submission, turning her head to the side so Maggie could bite her pulsing and dirt- as well as rain-streaked neck. Then, Maggie readied herself, licked the area clean after nuzzling it, then bit down and sucked hard, moving against Alex again as she did. After several thrusts against Alex’s lap, she also opened up the teen’s pant line some, slid her hand inside, found the tip of her love’s erect and needy _gunnaragen_ , and traced a few small circles around it as she kept thrusting. The two came together around the same time, such that their pants and Maggie’s hand became covered with their essences. 

Maggie was surprised to learn Alex’s essence was blue after catching her breath, feeling less hazy, and withdrawing her hand to taste it. Alex nodded and took her love’s hand when she recognized the question filling her eyes, then led the way to the hideaway after they regained their balance. There, she could explain and, gods willing, make all of the firsts with Maggie she’d talked about before come to fruition. 


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the comments and kudos buttons! Promise to start responding to everything I've read so far. Glad to know the ABO Sanvers community is a strong one. :)
> 
> A lot of twists and turns up ahead, but let's get to some more smut and fluff in the interim! <3

Alex made good on her word and, after lighting the torches around them, showed Maggie the rainbucket invention behind the little hideaway hollow house (which she’d fashioned for times she needed to get away from it all). The hole-riddled bucket had filled with water before they’d arrived, and Alex let the cool liquid rain down on them by pulling a string to release it from a swirled pattern of previously-covered holes. 

While the bucket filled up a third time, Alex got brave and slowly started removing her clothes, shaking when she got to her stained pants and hesitating before rolling them down to her ankles. She was very nervous to show Maggie her _gunnaragen_ , but hopeful the girl would understand after hearing her explanation of why it was different.

Maggie’s mouth dropped open when seeing the blue-tipped, blue-sacked, and blue-veined as well as half-raised and otherwise snow white penis, stunned at how beautiful it was. Alex turned pink from head to toe and picked up her clothes to hide her lower half and flee, though, thinking Maggie didn’t like what she saw. To stop her love from running away, Maggie hugged the naked teen from behind and licked as well as kissed the fresh mating mark on her neck, nuzzling into it while massaging equally blue-tipped breasts (which she’d been amazed to see in full after all these years of being so close to Alex’s heart).

“Are your parts different because you were struck by lightning all those years ago?”

Alex’s entire body relaxed in response to the question, leading her to turn her head to the right and nod lightly in response while looking back -- but not directly -- at her love. She enjoyed the beats of the silence which fell upon them as their eyes closed, loving the feeling of Maggie holding her and tracing her chest and bite so tenderly.

After moving her entire self flush against Alex’s back, Maggie got bolder and tossed Alex’s clothes aside after softly dragging her hands from the warrior-healer’s breasts to her _gunnaragen_. Then, she lifted up the pleasantly heavy and long shaft as Alex bucked and leaned her head back in surprise at the change in course. 

Caressing the veiny member with one hand’s fingers before moving to pump it with that hand and cup the dark blue, pulsing plums with the other, Maggie whispered into her shivering love’s ear, “I’ve never seen a _gunnaragen_ as beautiful as yours. Nobody mentioned how you have two sets of plums or were so blue everywhere, so I should have believed you more earlier. When you said you’d never been with anyone. Do both pairs work?”

Starting to get hard and rock her hips in time with Maggie’s ministrations again, Alex vigorously nodded her head. The brunette only stopped to take off her clothes, turn Alex around, kiss her fiercely before she could get a sufficiently good look at the vast expanse of just-exposed brown skin, and start rubbing her wet and wanting sex against her love’s.

“Show me,” Maggie pleaded, wanting Alex to start mating her right then and there. 

Alex vigorously nodded again, took Maggie’s hands into hers, and sat down on a bench built into the wood-fenced and torch-lit showering area. Then, she took the cloth on top of the blackberry basket placed next to them off, wrapped them in a warm and dry animal fur from under the bench, and pulled the wrapped-up and raven-haired warrior atop her lap. Once Maggie was straddling her, the warrior-healer fished out handfuls of overly ripe berries, crushing them against the omega’s chest, belly, neck, lips, and opening to soothe yet further arouse and lubricate her mate. After vigorously licking, suckling, rubbing, and nibbling at each berry-kissed area while alternating between sitting, kneeling before, and lying on the bench, she sat down again, rubbed some of the blackberry juice on her penis to lubricate it, pumped against Maggie’s hands and inner thighs a few times, lined their sexes up, and started pushing inside while kissing a panting, barely-widened, and close Maggie. 

When seeing the blue and snowy penis those first moments, Maggie had been grateful her love wasn’t monstrously big (as thick as a cow’s lower leg) like many of male Viking alphas were. However, because it was their maiden voyage and both were actively in-cycle for the first time, neither realized how big Alex was going to get inside her. As minutes went by, Maggie’s head started swimming like she was going to throw up, and her knees started shaking as well as losing purchase on the bench. She could feel three more inches in length and another inch and a half in girth start sliding into her as the auburn-haired teen kissed, suckled, and nibbled on her strained-gone-limp neck. And Alex wasn’t even swollen or in all the way yet.

She truly tried to relax as her love slowly slid deeper inside her, but couldn’t handle any more stimulation. Before she had the chance to feel more accustomed to her love being all the way inside and full of blood as well as seed, she brokenly cried into the night and released her blackberry-mixed essence around the _gunnaragen_ mercilessly splitting her open like lightning did the sky. If the fence behind the bench hadn’t been there to support them both, the couple surely would have fallen over and into the mud from all of Maggie’s weight falling onto Alex and all of Alex’s purchase being lost as she gripped her coming love’s behind. 

After what seemed like an eternity, Maggie’s head felt clear enough for her to ask Alex if she’d released like she did. However, try as she might, the words just wouldn’t come out, given how hard she was still breathing. Thus, she moved a brown and shaky hand from where it had been holding onto Alex’s back for dear life to cup the four plums still standing at attention underneath them. She started massaging them when finding they were too full, hard, and throbbing to have released their contents, her inner omega screaming for Alex’s seed to be inside her. 

The feeling of that touch was intoxicating, but the lightning bender’s voice cracked as she cried out what she knew they needed.

“B-b-bedroom! N-n-now. My knot and plums h-h-hurt so badly, and you d-d-deserve b-b-better than this b-b-bench. _Please_?”

Not realizing her love was in pain yet able to give that much more that quickly, Maggie used all her strength to sit up on her haunches, lazily lick her love’s bottom lip through hazy and hooded eyes, nod yes, and hold tight as her shaking alpha struggled to move them both inside. 

As both would discover later on, going inside the hideaway hollow house prevented their pungent scents from carrying any farther into the night air. However, lightning patterns from Alex losing control and smoke from their fire would lead the berserkers hunting for the source of those smells -- particularly Maggie’s -- right to them.

The gods would have to grant them favor and time for Alex’s knot to take root at least once in Maggie’s sex before those berserkers appeared. 

Meanwhile, that time and favor also needed to be on their side in another way. 

They needed to mate before thirteen bloody, genetically lethal, and hungry creatures invaded their bed and crawled all over them that night.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for leaving such sweet and supportive notes and kudoses, all! Love and appreciate you. <3
> 
> Reward: More smut. Feels for days. A flashback to the ending of this chapter will appear in the next chapter, too, so bear with me. :)

While carrying her post-orgasm yet desperate, wet, and trembling love inside, Alex fumbled twice, meaning she and Maggie fell hard against two surfaces before making it to the goose down, fire-lit, and fur-laden bed.

First, Alex’s balance tipped some when she nudged the hideaway house’s back door open, such that Maggie’s back hit the door hard as it swung out, meaning the pale alpha went right with -- and further inside -- her. Alex apologized immediately after steadying them and catching her breath, but freaked out a little when she saw blood drizzling from her mate’s still-clenched yet comparatively more relaxed opening. Maggie assuaged her mate’s fears by lazily licking her lower lip again, planting a soft kiss there, and saying she wasn’t hurt from the ordeal. Rather, like those from her original village who went into heat, the brunette had been bleeding like that a couple days. It was her body’s way of communicating need, and it only did that when she’d been around the lightning bender for long periods of time.

Once hearing the blood was due to her in a good way, Alex felt incredibly turned on by it dripping down and cooling her comparatively fiery shaft, knot, and plums. Struggling to control more than just her legs, she dove in for a heated series of kisses, began rocking into Maggie’s opening while sliding olive arms above their heads as their pace quickened, and considered just taking her right then and there. Even if doing so meant they’d eventually crumble onto the ground. 

Fortunately, her sharp mind and good judgment overrode her inner alpha’s recklessness, encouraging the teen to slow down and keep moving them inside.

The second time occurred when they were just over the door’s threshold. Maggie started feeling small but pleasant electric shocks to her clit which were coming from Alex’s knot rubbing against it, and she couldn’t help but moan her love’s name loudly and start suckling a sweaty, pale earlobe in response. Alex’s alpha gave into the intense heat of the moment, leading her to aggressively sweep the top of a deep orange wood dresser drawer clear with her arm, slam her mate on top of it, and start rutting into as well as kissing, suckling, and (in between deepening gasps) sweet talking her with abandon. 

The omega’s eyes teared up and her head tipped back at how loved, wanted, ready, and full she felt. However, neither anticipated her inner omega would respond in equally aggressive yet wholesome ways. Somehow, she had the strength to untangle her legs from around her mate’s back, slowly scoot the lightning bender back from the hip-level dresser in between hard thrusts, hop down, turn them around, pin the alpha against the wall behind them, and start attacking the mating mark and blue plums sending out flares for her attention. She brought Alex’s pale and shaking legs up off the ground one by one, took the back of one pale thigh in each hand, and began reciting lines from books they’d stolen from raid hauls in between thrusting her pinned love into the dark, smooth wood wall. 

Although loving the feeling of everything Maggie was doing to her and pleasantly hazy from it all, Alex remembered something she wanted to say. Instead of it sounding like the soft plea in her head, it came out a scream because her mate had come dangerously close to popping the electric blue knot inside her soaked, tight, and fluttering chambers. 

“I DON’T WANT TO BE ON TOP WHILE WE’RE ON THE BED!”

Alarmed at the sudden outburst and pungent scent of fear pheromones wafting into the air, Maggie stopped her ministrations to check in with and soothe a clearly-shaken Alex. While gently letting the so-close alpha down from the wall, the startled omega quickly started sending out calming pheromones to create a safe space for her love to keep talking in. Then, she cupped her mate’s cheek with one hand and began rubbing circles on her trembling and pale lower back with the other.

Whispering while leaning in closer, Maggie said, “My brave, sweet, and strong twin flame . . . my love from places beyond the stars . . . we don’t have to do anything you don’t want. Whenever you’re ready, I hope you’ll tell me why normal mating positions are scary for you. I want to help you feel less afraid, if you’ll let me in.”

After slowing her tears and breathing, Alex let it all out with a shaky voice, giving Maggie the chance she’d asked for.

“I’m scared I’ll lose control and become like the horrible man who raped my grandma and the bad to worse alphas who rape omegas. I don’t want to do anything you don’t want, either. You deserve the chance to be on top so you can . . . escape . . . or take me out . . . if you need or want to. So I won’t crush you. So I can feel us make the babies with your hands on top of mine and . . . let them know we both want them. That I want to marry their mommy when we can get out of the gates of hell trapping us in the game and this village. I don’t want to be a monster to you. Or our little ones. Ever.”

Maggie broke over how thoughtful, sweet, and honest yet dark her love’s response was. Thinking quickly, she picked up a book Alex had knocked down, removed its fur binding, took Alex’s hand in hers, wrapped the fur around their joined hands, and whispered promises she’d written down and memorized for years.

“I, Maggie Sawyer and omega from distant lands, dedicate myself to my alpha, partial Viking and captive-born Alex Danvers, in front of all gods willing to bear witness. I promise to love and cherish her every day, even when we disagree and aren’t on the same page in life and books. To fight by her side to free this land so no one else will have to suffer as we have. To make my sex our library and ask her to fill it with books from hers so our free children’s stories may be created using their pages. To keep my ears, heart, eyes, hands, bed, time, and library open to her as far as possible. And, finally, to write and paint my love all over her body and soul, even when we are far apart and sent to the underworld.”

Omegas proposing to alphas was unheard of and would be deemed blasphemous by the villagers, but Alex didn’t give a damn. She was amazed at Maggie’s boldness and specificity when requesting the gods’ presence and creating a vision of what their life could be like. The act made her bold through her happy tears as well, such that she shared something she’d never told anyone but the wolves.

“You’re the only reason I didn’t stay in the underworld when I was struck by lightning. I heard a sweet voice calling out to me and felt . . . golden . . . everywhere . . . all of a sudden. The gatekeeper and gods all looked scared because I could move the light and backed away from me. Then, I started . . . floating away . . . back to this body. Next thing I knew, there was a little girl with long black hair and soft brown eyes I’d never seen before. She was wrapping me in a saddle and trying to get me to wake up, only to get punished later for trying to save me.” 

Overwhelmed by the confession and the sentiment of their first memory, Maggie surged into her love’s lips, passionately, tearfully, and fervently kissing her. After moving them against and on top of the bed, the omega straddled her newly-horizontal love, then lovingly licked her bottom lip, mating mark, and breasts with her flattened tongue.

“Marry, mark, and mate me whenever and however you wish, my god-scaring lightbearer,” she shakingly yet earnestly rasped out. 

Crying as well, yet inspired by Maggie’s courage and vulnerability, Alex thumbed the omega’s cheek and lips, then whispered her answer.

“Now, tomorrow before everyone as we end the game for forever, and now. Pull my ear hard if you want me to switch from being on top of you, but can’t speak?”

Maggie could only nod vigorously as she kissed warm, swollen, and tear-salted lips. Then, after a few seconds of readying her mind for mating, she switched their positions and brought her love flush against her front once more.

“Fill me with only the good books from your towers, Alex Danvers. Fill me so our children and all who follow them know and appreciate the light. No other alpha can hold a candle to you,” she whispered with soft eyes, cupping her love’s face with both hands and tucking her auburn and zig-zagged undercut back.

Alex gently kissed her wife on her nose and eyes, nodded, and began filling her library’s request for books as the night grew darker.

They mated just in time to wake up to the thirteen killers in their house. While they dealt with that mess, a band of angry and ruthless alphas began surrounding the property, waiting for the right moment to rush in and ruin the moment.


	5. Chapter Five -- Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be gentle with me when commenting about this chapter. Hoping the first flashback (smut) is good enough, but am pretty burned out today and am less sure as a result. <3
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading and following my work. Your comments and kudoses make me smile, especially during weeks as hard as this one. :)

After a successful mating, and due to their day being very long and emotional, Alex and Maggie held each other until they passed out under the black bear hides covering their generously large, warm, and sweat-coated bed. The brunette’s olive belly was so distended from all the books her love filled it with that they had no choice but to roll over on their sides and scoot away from each other some to accommodate it, threading their hands atop the firm, staticky, and veiny bump before doing so. However, both were too sated, happy, and sleepy to care about the slight awkwardness of their new position. 

While the resting pair’s fire died down and the rain softened to trickling, an equally tired Luna crept in through the hideaway house’s back door (which, to the couple’s unawareness, had softly swung open again during the storm caused by Alex’s powers). Her belly was also very much distended, but not for the same reason Maggie’s was; she was on the verge of delivering pups, and she wanted to wait until the storm subsided and her beloved human friend was present to meet them. To hopefully surprise the young warrior with a miniature version of Axel (the Danvers’ beloved orange and white shepherd who had died because Roden, Alex’s arch nemesis, had secretly poisoned her a couple months back). 

Though heaving and somewhat out of it due to her contractions, Luna was determined and clever enough to stack all the large pillows Maggie and Alex had haphazardly knocked off while mating, then slowly hoist herself onto the wooden bench in front of the bed. She’d been excited as well as confused to smell the teen from so far away, but everything made sense to her as she slowly heaved herself up onto the comfy bed’s end and investigated the situation. 

Smelling an omega like herself as well as some leftover fear pheromones, but hearing the soft sounds of the couple’s snores, Luna hesitantly pawed the covers back to make sure her friend was okay and get a better look at the sleeping stranger. Unlike most of her pack, the wolf could see in every color humans could, even in the darker hue the room had taken on. Thus, she immediately noticed Maggie’s long and tousled black hair, the couple’s deep brown marriage bond fur (which had drooped down and off their wrists), and the seed-swollen olive belly their hands were still clasped over. Ever curious, and unable to hold herself back, Luna stepped forward and edged her comparatively colder nose near Maggie’s belly, hoping her hunch about the sleeping brunette was right.

When the steel gray wolf smelled Alex’s scent all over the belly, she immediately grew excited, such that her tail started bouncing and swishing back and forth. Not as abashed as other creatures in their land, she immediately began pawing the covers down further until finding the teens’ still-swollen and joined sexes. After smelling the joined parts to confirm her suspicion, the wolf went to softly lick Maggie’s belly in celebration, happy to learn her pups might have same-age human friends to play with in a few months.

However, try as she might to lick, something about Maggie’s belly was making the action impossible. Every time Luna softly nosed it and stuck her black-spotted tongue out, small electric shocks emanated from the bump, forcing the wolf’s snout to scrunch back like she was pressing her teeth and gums into a large, flat pane of sea glass. Unsure of what that meant, but wanting to stay close to her now-shivering humans, Luna walked to the head of the bed between the couple, pulled up the bear blankets to cover them all, snuggled underneath, and started giving birth while resting her head on Maggie’s belly, then her sac-bearing and bleeding opening against Alex’s.

The gods showered immense favor on all three women that night, such that the couple was too caught up in deeply meaningful flashbacks to feel Luna giving birth to a single Axel-like pup, then eleven more which partially or completely looked like her. Specifically, as the huntress plopped her orange firstborn onto Alex’s breasts and numerous gray and gray-white pups throughout the space (especially near Maggie’s belly and breasts), Alex dreamt of what their first knotting felt like while Maggie dreamt of the circumstances she and Alex had first met under.

_“Fill me with only the good books from your towers, Alex Danvers. Fill me so our children and all who follow them know and appreciate the light. No other alpha can hold a candle to you,” Maggie whispered with soft eyes before cupping Alex’s face with both hands and tucking her auburn, zig-zagged undercut back._

_Flipped on top, Alex leaned down and gave Maggie what she called the “trinity kiss” (one which she’d made up and dreamt about giving the brunette when they’d slept in the same bed for the first time). After she pecked both olive eyelids and the swollen rosebud lips below them, she slowly licked Maggie’s newly-exposed neck from bottom to top with the flat, then the tip, of her tongue. Once done, she moved to each side, lingering where she hoped to bite the next day during the game’s end. With her wife’s permission, the pale lightning bender suckled a very noticeable love bruise into the pulsing and swollen scent gland jutting out from there, wanting to make her claim on Maggie known._

_Maggie wrapped Alex up in her arms, kneaded her sweaty auburn locks, massaged her suckling head, let their hips move as they pleased, and eventually squirted onto the blue and white gunnaragen while feeling her sensitive gland being suckled. Surprised at the force of the liquid splashing onto her equally sensitive penis, Alex moved her head back, eyes full blown and staring down into Maggie’s with a mix of admiration, need, and curiosity. The teen’s shaft had grown softer after their heart to heart, but started springing back to life after being doused and while the teen was thinking of something._

_“Before, you said you wanted to paint my body and soul with your love. If I guide your hands, could we paint my gunnaragen with your essence? I want to be the canvas you always come back to, love.”_

_Maggie squirted hard again at the thought of Alex trusting and wanting her in that way, heart nearly beating out of her chest and head vigorously nodding once able to lift it again._

_“Thank you, my sweet wife. Will you give me your hands now?”_

_Maggie couldn’t bring herself to nod again due to her being so hazy and close again, but turned her hands palm up, placed them on her inner thighs, then nuzzled, kissed, and suckled the digits of the hand cupping her face to say yes. After feeling trickles of precum leaking from her tip in response, Alex guided Maggie’s hands toward her opening, gathered the milky wetness from there, then mixed it with the electric blue streams to brush sky blue, opaque lines, claw marks, and rings of essence on the teen’s nearly foot-long gunnaragen. Maggie would have come at the sight of her love doing that, but didn’t because Alex gently put a hand on her arching belly and asked her to wait._

_“Can you hold on so we can let go together? I want to paint murals on the walls of your library so you can feel my love, too.”_

_Maggie started crying at the soft gesture and, desperate for her love to be inside, quickly sat up on her haunches, straddled her love’s lap, and started sliding her wife’s brush inside while alternating between crushing swollen lips with hers, suckling Alex’s scent gland, and massaging her four staticky, juice-filled plums. Too desperate to give herself time to fully adjust, Maggie started earnestly thrusting against the essence-streaked brush while gently pushing her wife down onto her back, willing her library to open the hell up and let the artist, writer, warrior, and queen of death -- her equal -- all the way in._

_Alex loved how narrow, warm, and wet her wife’s chambers were for her, so much so that her brush started leaking more paint and sliding in even deeper than before. To prevent her wife from coming before sealing those chambers, Maggie made her thrusts slower yet more focused, tracing her wife’s staticky knot with one hand and widening her opening for the knot with her other hand._

_Tilting her wife’s pale and heart-shaped face up so their hazy brown eyes would meet, Maggie shakily and hazily huffed out a final question to make sure them becoming parents was what Alex really wanted._

_“Are you sure you’re ready to make babies with your brush and books, my love? History has shown us it’s okay to wait for inspiration and return to finish your work later.”_

_Though shaky and on the verge of exploding, Alex reached out and cupped her slowly-thrusting wife’s face, traced her bottom lip with a pale thumb, nodded yes, brought their lips together once more, and flipped them over, checking in with Maggie one last time before popping her buzzing blue knot in._

_Maggie wrapped her legs around her love, keened, arched, and silently screamed in response to the squelching noise and bulging sensation of them becoming tied. Heeding the call from her innermost omega after recovering, she started an erratic and fast rhythm with her hips which Alex fell in line with and amplified with tenacious thrusts of her own._

_Once they consistently began meeting each other thrust for thrust, Alex slid Maggie’s throbbing clit between her fingers and gently massaged it, leading the brunette’s lower half to finally explode all over hers. The additional pressure and essence prompted the other warrior’s blue plums to fire one at a time, then in random pairs, then all at once and in alternating, firework-like patterns. Gasping for air, Alex hoarsely whispered how much she loved Maggie and the babies they were making, rekindling her love’s orgasm into a second wave which forced the blue tip in so deep it penetrated her cervix. The alpha felt like she died a second time when she came there (especially when Maggie’s chambers tightened in response to the buzzing sensation coming from the blue tip)._

_Collapsing under the black bear blankets, the pair smiled blissfully at each other after recovering enough to open their eyes, but passed out after rolling onto their sides to cradle each other and the freshly painted, filled library under their joined hands._


	6. Chapter Five -- Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Appreciate the additional bookmarks, words of encouragement, kudoses, and reads! I am posting this chapter earlier than planned, but will not be posting part three until Friday. Gotta write it after working on two other fics (which you can find below). :) <3
> 
> Multi-chapter ABO fic about alien Alex and turned-alien Maggie (series part two coming up): https://archiveofourown.org/works/21751348/chapters/51894502
> 
> Follow-up oneshots for the above fic:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/23844580/chapters/57303988
> 
> Anyway, some violence and rape up ahead. Mostly insufferable cuteness and serious longing which have nothing to do with any of that, though. Try not to cry about the pups and good memories. I shamelessly do when it comes to animals and humans I love. ;)

Although the loud and windy storm around them had softened to light rain due to Alex’s powers and sex calming down, the onlooking berserkers who’d survived the night decided to wait until morning to approach the hideaway house and try to snatch -- then breed -- the tantilizing omega inside. 

Hours earlier, the most desperate and crazed members of their band of nine had rushed at the house with abandon, only to be struck by two trees and some spare gardening tools which had been ripped out of their resting places due to the hurricane-force winds. Some of those alphas were sent to the underworld on impact, but the ones who were able to crawl or hobble back to the group were ambushed by the stronger alphas who’d hung back, then bent over some nearby large rocks and rutted into by the lustful, havoc-ready survivors. 

The red-eyed, fanged, and brown-mohawked ring leader, Roden, took great pleasure out of being the last to rut into the injureds’ bleeding and seed-leaking asses. In addition to having a barbed and sickly large _gunnaragen_ (which many likened to a charred, femur-long pine tree and saw cause unspeakable pain countless times), the bearded terror was the youngest of the family which started the game Alex and Maggie desperately wanted to end. Anyone chosen by him or his family during the insidious event was given the choice to kill themself in public instead of receiving their knots while alive; however, either way, the unfortunate souls got ripped apart and put up on a stake to terrify anyone wanting to fight the village’s terrible status quos. 

In sum, that family haunted many omegas’ -- and even some alphas’ -- dreams.

Fortunately, Maggie and Alex were unaware of Roden’s presence on the woodland hill in front of them, the carnage happening outside, or how close game day was to breaking. During the last moments of the moonlight and their respective dreams, the two finally began feeling suckling sensations on their respective breasts. Maggie awoke first because Alex involuntarily came inside her again due to the sensation and her dream, but the brunette warrior went from grinning, flushed, and eyes shut in bliss to stunned, pale, and eyes wide open in panic at the golden-eyed wolf blocking her view of Alex and staring at her. 

Thankfully, Maggie didn’t stay that scared to move, breathe, or make noise for long; Luna started wagging and swishing her tail again before booping the shaken teen on the nose with her black paw, cleaning the slightly dirt-covered area with one long sweep of her tongue, and gently nudging one of her babies up with her snout.

More at ease due to the touch and realization of the other miracle which had happened in their bed that night, but still hesitant, Maggie whispered out the only wolf name Alex had mentioned. She sincerely hoped she was right in case the intruder was easy to anger.

“Luna?”

Upon hearing her name, Luna began swishing and bouncing her tail again, pushing the squealing rollie pollie of a baby closer, and switching between looking down at Maggie’s moon-lit hand and back up into her eyes. Not shy about asking for what she wanted, the new mother was signaling for her new and warm-handed friend to voluntarily touch her for the first time.

Fortunately, Maggie was a very quick judge of character as well and could tell the wolf meant her no harm. She slowly brought her hand up to meet Luna’s awaiting forehead and nose, then started softly caressing the gray and moon-lit fur she found purchase on. 

Luna licked the parts of the olive arm which she could still reach when bent that way as Maggie introduced herself, then started wagging and bouncing her tail harder upon hearing the stranger’s name, eventually whacking Alex out of a peaceful slumber. The auburn-haired lighting bender had told the wolf Maggie stories for ages, so much so that the huntress would whine when the teen recounted the brunette’s moments of pain and sadness over missing her long-lost mom, but perked up and ran around when hearing how the two had learned new words in school or fallen asleep together while reading, cuddling, or drawing under the stars. Axel could never shut up about how great the olive-skinned warrior was, either, so the wolf was relieved to finally meet the girl of her human’s dreams. 

After planting kisses on the eye-level puppy’s full belly and cooing at her while stroking her back with two fingers, Maggie started realizing Luna was far from a one-pup mama. Looking down and around, she saw two more babies suckling her own breasts (which, to the teen’s surprise, were engorged with milk). She also saw and heard five more burping, sneezing, sleeping, whistling, and wiggling their ears due to being drunk on a mix of human and wolf milk. Then, when Luna lifted her leg, Maggie was able to see four more puppies: three nursing against silver fur and one being softly stroked by two of her sniffling love’s pale fingers. 

“Alex? Alex, are you and the puppy you’re stroking awake and okay? I’m okay, and Luna and all of her other pups seem healthy and safe,” Maggie softly said, not wanting to startle her love and wishing she could see her love’s face over Luna’s swollen and furry body.

Sensing Maggie’s need, Luna moved the puppies nursing on her off for a moment, picked herself up, plopped the whining three down near the remaining pillows one by one, and moved to continue nursing them while leaning her back against the head of the bed. Once the two omegas could tell the teen was crying, Luna laid her head down on the teen’s auburn locks while whining in empathy, and Maggie reached out to cradle her love’s tear-streamed face. The wolf knew why the teen was crying, but patiently waited for her to share the reason with Maggie. 

Lifting her shaking hand off the sleeping pup for a moment, Alex sobbed out, “She looks and smells just like Axel. Sleeps with her tongue out, hiccups, and runs in her sleep, too. Can you see her?”

After readjusting the pups around her, Maggie leaned in to get a better look, stroked the lone orange pup as she twitched and lapped in her sleep, then kissed her love’s forehead and hugged her, the significance of the pup to Luna and Alex alike dawning on her.

“Axel would be so proud of Luna and this litter. A dozen little sweethearts who I’m sure will grow up to be just like their fierce, smart moms. She’d be proud of you, too, by the way. We all are,” Maggie rasped out, choking up as well. Like her wife, she really missed Axel (who, unlike most other villagers’ dogs, had always been kind to and gentle with children, no matter their origins or statuses).

While wiping her tears away, Alex nodded in agreement with her wife’s assessment, especially once the raven-haired warrior and mother wolf began gathering the puppies and plopping them all down in front of the alpha to help her feel better. The action made the teen smile a little through her tears, given she’d always had a soft spot for animals (especially Luna and Axel).

“I wish Axel could be here to see, touch, and help name them. She was always good at watching over us, cleaning everyone, and helping omegas pick names for their babies,” the teen confessed, heart longing for the days her shepherd would talk and sing to her, Maggie, Kara, and (when the adults were gone) the captured children.

Softly crying as well, Maggie nodded in agreement and whispered, “Yeah. Me, too. Me, too, love.”

Luna whined in agreement as well, especially regarding the angel’s guardian spirit and comforting skills. 

While running to capture and kill her first stag a year beforehand, the growing wolf accidentally got trapped in a more subtle snare Vikings had set out for smaller game. Fortunately, Axel was close enough to hear and act on Luna’s shrieks of pain; she had been nearby exploring the woods to dig up truffles and gather a bundle of violets to surprise her human, but cleaned the scared wolf off before running to get the farther-away Alex (whose only birthday wish had been for her parents to let her capture a forest spirit to show Maggie, Kara, and Axel). Alex was able to free Luna with her knife and powers, but had to work to earn the wolf’s trust over a series of months; being trapped like that was very traumatizing to her, and her pack had exchanged numerous stories about Vikings being unnecessarily nasty, brutish creatures. Fortunately, with Axel’s coaching (and, to the teen’s amusement, after accidentally scratching her butt against some hallucinogenic mushrooms growing out of a tree), she gave the lightning bender a chance. Especially because Alex nursed her back to health and was too sweet to hold the seemingly endless butt scooching incident against her. 

As the trio cuddled and got lost in different memories of the beloved dog, their fire suddenly roared back to life, spewing wisps of smoke and strips of wood throughout the hideaway house and startling them as it did. 

Having learned their lesson, the gods knew better than to hold back a dead loved one the couple was calling out to. So, against their wills, they let a spirit which had joined them fairly recently out for a time.

Walking right out of the fire and smoke, a partially see-through Axel showed the hell up just before all hell on Earth broke loose.


	7. Chapter Five -- Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! I know. Spent a lot more time writing this than I thought, but appreciate your patience bunches. <3
> 
> Enjoy the surprises coming up. Need to include a part four of this chapter because there's still a lot of content in it which I need to write this long weekend. :)

Knowing she had no time to waste, Axel got right to the point of her visit. 

After apologizing for the mess her entrance made and reassuring everyone she wasn’t under the gods’ thumbs while visiting, she smiled, jumped up on the bed, licked everyone to say hello, and told Alex, Maggie, and Luna why she died (earning angry as well as sad tears and whines). Then, she asked the trio to avenge her as well as everyone Roden had hurt and killed, but save as many as they could in the hours to come. 

According to her, the underworld was undergoing some massive changes to accommodate far more people who were expected to die around the time the game took place. However, she didn’t know who all of the dead would be; the number of places being added outmatched how many people lived in the village. Her guess was that Roden’s family might be bringing in a large group of fresh captives to kill for fun and to continue scaring everyone into submission, but she also heard rumors one or more armies were coming for the family that day. Being a fresh soul to the underworld who was working her way up in a rogue intelligence group, information was hard to come by.

After giving everyone a moment to process the news and her request, she cheered them up in several ways. 

First, she thanked Luna for braving birth and pregnancy on her own (given they’d mated just days before the poisoning occurred and the pregnancy didn’t really sit well with her extended family). The two cuddled as much as their respective states would allow, savoring the moment after being apart for months which felt like eternity. 

Next, she brainstormed pup names with the just-untied couple and Luna, starting humorous as well as spirited debates along the way. After about an hour of discussion, each pup was properly canoodled and announced before the gods. The omega bequeathed to Alex was named Abelard (partly after Axel and a great philosopher the couple had heard about), a pair of steel gray alphas with white boots on different legs got named Hafiz and Hayward (somewhat after Luna’s dad, Hoyt), a light gray omega was named Liam (somewhat after Ludo, Luna’s full brother), and a trio of steel gray alphas with different white stripes and muzzles got named Amina, Fenna, and Neda (somewhat after Luna’s half-sister, Avriel, as well as several strong women the couple had read about). Interestingly, Orthros, Samarra, Sigurd, Eagle, and Zareb (named after traders and explorers the couple had met as well as Axel’s parents) were the first betas born to Luna’s family in hundreds of years. 

The wolf sincerely hoped the rest of her pack members would come to accept the pups, even though she knew she didn’t need their approval. However, no matter what happened on that front, the four elders in the hideaway house knew one thing: though their statuses and coat colors differed, the “Danvers Dozen” (as Axel joked) and all four elders were very much loved. Death, as they learned, was powerless to change that. 

To let the couple clean up the messes the birth and mating had made, wash off, and have some alone time, Axel offered to watch over Luna and get to know the pups as they crawled around and, once their dam’s appetite was satiated, ate. Apparently, the wolf had buried a sizable treato (a fresh elk leg) near the back door for her human to cook the night before; however, knowing the new mom needed it more than they did, Alex cleaned it off, quickly cooked it up by low-grade shocking it with her fingers, and left it in a bowl Maggie had made for her when they turned eight. After reassuring the new moms they could rustle up something to eat outside, the humans took the bear skin blanket everything had happened on with them and tried to wash its underside’s stains off. 

The couple would enjoy a new as well as unexpected feast in the shed-like book nook Alex built outside behind the shower-like invention, but it had nothing to do with hunting and gathering. However, before getting to that moment, Maggie had to help Alex look at a problem they were having in a new way. 

“Mmmphhhh! No matter how much I wash this, the blue, red, and brown stains won’t come off. This blanket came from the first bear we killed when we were old enough to hunt, and now it’s ruined,” the young hunter and healer said, sad and frustrated to see the remnant of such a good memory irrevocably changed.

After getting Alex to leave the hide on the same bench they’d been on the night before and turn around, Maggie started rubbing a shampoo-like substance made from black mud, flowers, and forest spirit dumplings into her love’s hair while touching their foreheads and syncing up their breathing. Once her wife’s shoulders and stance relaxed at the action, Maggie saw her opening and went for it. 

“What if we saw this blanket through the eyes of the painters and sailors we’ve met? The ones who learned to move with the swishes and seas they’d never expected instead of fighting them? I never got to know my sire or what their relationship with my mom was like, but our babies will see the dots between what we did as kids and how we lovingly made them connect when they see it. Luna’s pups will probably not remember meeting Axel because they are so young, but they will always know their human and canine moms were with them as they came into the world and ate for the first time on it. Hopefully, they will be able to look back and learn their best same-age friends were also made here. That this blanket bound our family together for a wonderful night none of us will forget, but is blank enough to be added to as the swishes and seas change for us.”

Intrigued by Maggie’s perspective, Alex opened her eyes in surprise and looked at her in a way the creative brunette knew was a request to keep going. 

Taking her love by the hand to trace each stain with their fingers, Maggie thought aloud, “We could make placenta art for our first litter starting where we’ve already marked . . . some for our second and third litters on this long side . . . and maybe some for a fourth litter in this corner. All of it in the shape of open hearts, given they’ll be some of the first babies made in love and freedom. Definitely some more blackberry explosion patterns to commemorate how our wedding built off of last night. A little splash, line, zig zag, or shape to represent them meeting their extended families. Pawprints to commemorate the pups’ first walks and kills. It could be perfect, if we were seeing it with new eyes.”

Wrecked by how beautiful her wife’s heart and mind were, Alex turned her so their fronts would be together again, cupped her chin with both pale hands, and kissed her soundly as the water trickled on and off their pressed-together bodies. Then, after leaving the bear skin blanket to dry and wrapping them in new furs, she took an olive hand in hers to head into the book nook, hoping the soulful woman would tell her more about her sire and/or let her try something new. 

While they took time to appreciate Alex’s most sacred book collection as well as new forms of intimacy under the nook’s enchanted ceiling, the healer would learn two secrets Maggie had never shared (despite their closeness): why she’d come to her just-struck-by-lightning side and how the omega wasn’t human by birth. 

However, as they walked from shower to nook and began settling into their alone time, Roden and the other hungover, lustful, and brutish alphas began to wake up to the impossibly stronger smell of an unbitten and still-in-heat omega. Storm no longer inhibiting their movements, they began trekking down the long and wide as well as steep hill, having no idea the terror they intended to cause paled in comparison to the many terrors they were about to face.


	8. Chapter Five -- Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your patience! Had some writer's block with this chapter (classic overthinker here). Anyway, please let me know what you think, and happy reading. Stay safe and happy as far as possible. <3

Maggie couldn’t get over how beautiful the enchanted ceiling in her wife’s book nook was. After walking into the warm, low-lit, and shack-like treasure trove of knowledge, her breath went away as the deep red wood above them shifted into a night sky filled with wisps of purple and blue as well as several constellations they loved. A shooting star raced from one corner all the way to the furthest other as Alex slipped the brunette’s fur down below her nursing-tender and swollen breasts, held her from behind, and forged a trail of light kisses from her left shoulder to her right ear. Then, after the lightning bender slowly rolled the fur down to hug her wife’s toned yet smooth hips, she slowly swept the black waterfall of hair to one side rivulet by rivulet, began licking and suckling where she wanted to mark her, and held her still-distended olive belly as if cradling the most precious jewel imaginable. 

Given her heat was even stronger and her in-rut love was holding her impossibly close, Maggie couldn’t help her breathing speeding up, her folds beginning to drip with her blood and essence again, or her hips starting to rock backwards. Though they were separated by the furs, she could feel her wife’s _gunnaragen_ responding to their newfound intimacy as well. Unable to hold back, she broke from her wife’s embrace as she turned around to grab and kiss her passionately. 

However, the alpha was just as quick-reflexed; right as her wife faced her and their fronts became flush once more, Alex turned them so the raven-haired warrior was pressed up against the wall. The pale warrior wanted to kiss her wife until she couldn’t think anymore, but had plans for their new position which were too meaningful and long-held to brush past. 

Between kisses, Alex directed her wife’s attention to where different types of books were located, then explained the books and ceiling were gifts from Aurvandil (the Norse god of stars). One night, while looking for a new constellation to dedicate to Maggie through an enchanted spyglass she’d found in the woods, she accidentally saw the god’s long-lost toe (which Thor had snapped off during their travels, flung into the heavens, and made a star). The star was no longer visible after a few minutes, but she sent a prayer to Aurvandil about her discovery, and he and a search party were able to retrieve the toe-turned-star with her help (giving him a sense of closure). In exchange for her support, he gifted her the enchanted ceiling and a book for every moment she’d fallen in love with Maggie more. 

The teen had apparently stopped counting on paper once she hit 5,000 at the age of fifteen, but never stopped asking Aurvandil’s gifted ceiling to keep track. Upon request, it could project how many enchantment-shrunken books there were in that small corner of their world and find books fitting the needs of Alex and whichever guests she wanted to bring. The young alpha had thought of asking the god to expand the nook instead of shrinking the books down until they were pulled off the shelves to be read, but loved the coziness its smallness provided too much. 

Maggie couldn’t hold back her tears at the sentiment of everything Alex was telling her and felt her omega break when the alpha said thank you for their moment in the shower, the night before, their morning with the pups, and the thousands of other times she’d shifted her perspective in life-affirming ways. Then, as their lips and tongues met in fiery bliss, white-hot fires began roaring to life in Maggie’s heart and belly, leading her to gush blood all over the floor. While her wife was alarmed at the feeling of red liquid on her pale and shaking leg for the third time in less than a day, a shaking yet sure and determined Maggie unsheathed the pulsing and ready _gunnaragen_ , then brought it up to be inside her _hraffa_ once again. 

Although her inner alpha wanted the instant gratification of marking Maggie and increasing their chances of having pups later that year, the controlled parts of Alex wanted to do something to shift her wife’s perspective on what their lovemaking could be. To push the boundaries of what Maggie thought she could have and be. To show her new forms of love by sharing some things she’d learned from the god’s gifts.

“No,” Alex softly whispered in her wife’s ear while gently moving the olive hand guiding her penis away from the drenched and already-fluttering opening. 

Inner omega alarmed and confused at being turned down, Maggie bit her lip and took a moment to regroup. While quieting the storm within and maintaining as much external composure as she could, a thought came to her mind: maybe Alex just needed more time to reach the same peak she was speeding toward. Thus, Maggie started kissing Alex more gently, then focused most of her energy on rubbing her love’s length with the hand currently grasping it and caressing the blue plums as if they were a royal’s silks. 

Alex’s inner alpha was reeling at the new touching and ridiculously close to taking over her, but she knew her mission and gave everything she had to prevent its deterrence. 

“No, my love,” she softly said again, stopping Maggie’s ministrations and bringing the olive hands up to plant light knuckle, fingertip, and palm kisses there, then closing the distance so their foreheads met.

Honestly panicking at this point, and feeling terribly vulnerable (despite knowing how strong she was), Maggie sobbed out, “Wh-wh-what should I d-d-do?”

Taking pity on her wife, and wanting to explain her refusals, Alex gently tipped her chin up so their eyes would meet. Then, the pale teen closed both of her wife’s eyes with gentle and slow sweeps of her fingers, kissed up the lines Maggie’s tears made, kissed each reddened eyelid, then kissed the confusion- and sadness-creased olive forehead. Then, Alex whispered with even softer eyes, “You don’t have to do anything for or because of me, Maggie. I want our joinings to be so much more than my _gunnaragen_ being inside of you, or us being together to come or have pups. I want to place you on the bench near the window, open your legs while they rest on my shoulders, make a constellation of your freckles with my mouth, and make love to your _hraffa_ with my fingers and tongue. To give your _hraffa_ a name only we know and just . . . give _you_ pleasure. Not me, unless you still need me afterwards.”

Maggie honestly couldn’t wrap her mind around what Alex was asking; although the directions made sense, she’d never read about or otherwise encountered an alpha as giving as her wife was, or one with that thoughtful and creative (especially mid-rut). Sniffling a little, and still in shock, the brunette warrior and artist nodded her agreement to her wife’s request. Then, after gathering her thoughts, she softly smiled and rasped, “Children or no children, heat or no heat, my soul says I’m always going to love, want, and need you, Alex. To try new things with you. What shall my opening’s new name be?”

Smiling while nuzzling into her wife and lovingly staring into the brown soul windows she loved so much, Alex lowly said while cupping her wife’s sex, “I’ll always love, want, and need you, too, my love. I was hoping we could name your sacred place _Oolagen_.”

Maggie’s smile grew wider, hurting her cheeks and exposing her dimples for the first time since they’d been with the pups that morning.

“ _Oolagen_ , after the oola birds you see touching each wave of the auroras in the sky with their wings and songs?” 

Tearing up through her smile at the thought of her favorite birds and person, Alex nodded and said, “Yes, love. Because you make me sing every color imaginable, and I want to show you you can sing the skies, too.” 

Smiling impossibly wider through her happy tears, and after biting her lip while sheepishly looking at the floor, Maggie tossed their furs into the nearest corner, confidently and lovingly grabbed her wife’s hand, walked them over to the bench, and sat down as Alex prepared a spot to kneel on the floor. Maggie felt a little insecure about being opened up when remembering she was bleeding so much, but Alex reassured her and reiterated what she said before.

“Every color, Maggie. Let me sing every one to you, always. _Please_?” 

Feeling braver, Maggie nodded yes, bent down to sweep her wife’s lips and tongue into a long and heartfelt kiss, leaned back again to ready herself, grabbed two smaller bookshelves framing the nook’s sole window for support, and decided to let the sweet symphony they were going to make that morning fly free through her being. 

As Alex’s ministrations grew stronger, two of Maggie’s hidden powers -- manipulating time and creating energy barriers -- began to make themselves known for the first time. Specifically, once a triangular and flat piece of highly sensitive tissue slowly rolled out from Maggie’s _Oolagen_ and was suckled by a surprised yet accepting and willing Alex, some of the approaching berserkers unintentionally found themselves walking into and trapped by invisible-until-touched pockets of fire. As those unfortunate souls burned to death in slow motion, the rest of the alphas retreated for awhile, trying to figure out the minefield facing them before venturing into it again. 

Being the smartest of the bunch (yet nowhere near the teens he was hunting down), Roden decided they all needed to gather sackfuls of sticks to toss in front of them to reveal and avoid different energy pockets. Down to three other alphas besides himself, the tyrant incentivized the others to go first by offering the longest amount of time with the unbitten omega to the first venturer and proportionally less to each subsequent volunteer. Knowing they would not refuse such an offer (especially when faced with an opponent as formidable as Roden), the ringleader sat back and watched as each moved forward, then (in two cases) got severely burned or killed. 

As the three remaining alphas began to face their next obstacles, a drenched Maggie was violating every rule about being an omega she’d directly or indirectly picked up. Specifically, lost and delirious in her pleasure, she was holding onto the bookshelves framing the window for dear life as she shamelessly writhed, bucked, hugged her wife’s head between her thighs, screamed a mix of praises and obscenities, moaned, and (with Alex’s coaching) made different demands as the lightning bender suckled, traced, nibbled on, and claimed the bluish tissue they would come to know as a _veil_. Like one or more beings the _veil_ would show Alex as a soul-level rather than purely body-level release against her became imminent, Maggie had an extra organ which shared the things she did not know about herself and/or could not say aloud, including her origins and desires. 

Other than a wedding and family with Alex, another chance for them to knot before ending the game, and an endless series of libraries like the nook, Maggie’s _veil_ shared her birth story and insights on their first meeting. 

In the first vision, Alex saw life-like yet smoke-shrouded pictures of a woman bearing a mix of light elf and Valkyrie traits (which had to be the mother Maggie constantly longed for, given their likeness) making love with their world’s most powerful being -- a Norn -- against a tree in a forest. Deep in her spirit, Alex felt Maggie being conceived inside her mother’s womb and a hole in the tree (which the Norn had partially and accidentally pushed the elf-Valkyrie inside). Alex learned the Norn could not stay with Maggie’s mother after she fell pregnant because such a pairing was forbidden at the time and the Norn was responsible for many gods’ and humans’ fates. However, the lightning bender could see the Norn loved her mate and child to pieces; flickers of times the Norn was present (mostly Maggie’s last month inside her mother’s swollen belly, her birth, and her first six birthdays) popped up endlessly, such that Alex felt their warmth caressing parts of herself she didn’t know existed. 

In the second vision, she could see an excited and dimpled Maggie jumping on her bed in response to turning seven and getting to see her _Nornablu_ (sire) again. Maggie’s mother was once again heavily pregnant and yearning for the Norn to get to know their one on the way in addition to spending different one-on-one times with Maggie and herself. After the elf-Valkyrie gave her daughter permission to run along on her own for the first time, the vision took on a new light from there, such that Alex was given access to Maggie’s perspective. The little girl’s mother had told her _Nornablu_ was going to give her an extra special present that year: a lighting show on a hill with a twist at the end. Maggie was gleefully running toward a person on the hill she thought was _Nornablu_ , only to realize her sire was nowhere to be found and a girl about her age she felt an inexplicable connection to was dead and charcoal black from the lightning. Alex could feel the anger and sorrow over the situation rise up in the Norn’s veins; Thor had sabotaged the gift she’d tried to give her child and nearly ruined the true surprise -- meeting her soulmate -- for good. Maggie was able to rectify the situation using powers her parents hadn’t talked about, but her _Nornablu_ had been ambushed by a mix of gods and Norns who’d turned on her and locked her away in a labyrinth which never allowed her to see her family again. Maggie’s mother died of a broken heart after her firstborn never returned home and after she heard nothing more from her mate, then was sent to a labyrinth in the underworld which cut her off from her family. 

Alex was about to see what happened to Maggie’s unborn sister, but her concentration broke when the raven-haired warrior screamed out for the alpha’s growing knot. After seeing everything she’d seen, she didn’t have it in her to refuse Maggie anything ever again; with herculean strength, she hoisted Maggie off the bench, placed her on the fur rug covering the floor, brought their bodies into a tantric position, and (after giving her wife control) felt her _gunnaragen_ slip inside to the hilt. After just three mutual thrusts as well as light circles around Maggie’s clit, the knot popped in, and the two came together, screaming so hard they broke the glass and sent out mutual waves knocking the already-challenged berserkers off their feet. 

The couple wouldn’t get to discuss the visions or the blue sun shape which had just begun forming around Maggie’s swollen and pulsing navel, though. Four figures would all open the door to the enchanted nook before then, holding the twelve pups and a head up as they interrupted the moment.


	9. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might need to edit this a little when getting back from the gym today, but here you go! :)
> 
> Buckle up, you all. War time is coming up soon after some good news gets out. <3
> 
> Clarification: In this story, Norns are beings which are superior to and separate beings from gods, humans, and Valkyries (messengers of the gods) in terms of their powers and responsibilities. Comment below with any more questions you have, but some will be answered in the next chapter. :)

Maggie felt a lot of things hit her all at once when Alex’s knot popped inside her _Oolagen_.

A mix of pain and pleasure from her wife’s rock-hard tissue and the new bite on her olive skin (which she’d silently asked for, neck craned in submission and eyes showing her desperate yearning to be equally marked). 

Shock and worry at how, for some reason, the two of them had broken the nook’s only window.

Soul-level intuition that, somehow, Alex had come to understand her on a level she couldn’t quite articulate yet. 

Excitement, fulfillment, and awe at how they’d just gotten pregnant when surrounded by the things they loved (namely the stars, books, and gentle rainbow rays which had shone through the window’s glass).

Even deeper appreciation for the loving, open-minded, and poetic lightning bender’s heart, mind, soul, and spirit. 

Hindsight uncertainty and worry over whether they’d be able to untie in time to stop what they hoped would be the final game day. 

Anger, surprise, sadness, and annoyance at how someone had rudely thrown the nook’s door wide open, interrupting their special moment before she could share the good news. 

Opening their eyes and turning their heads after catching their breaths, the couple saw Luna and two of her pack members -- her light gray brother, Ludo, and her blue roan half-sister, Avriel -- each holding two pups in their mouths. However, the freshly tied and pregnant pair didn’t recognize the hooded figure holding the rest of the pups in both arms and Roden’s dead, open-mouthed, and terror-stricken head in both gloved, crossed hands.

Ready to defend each other to the end (even if exhausted), Alex readied her lightning hands as, to her unawareness, Maggie felt lightning flowing from her own hands and readied herself to use it if needed. Facing toward the door, both were also unaware of how their eyes alone could stop most offenders in their tracks; their pupils had narrowed into reptilian, long, black, and narrow slits surrounded by light gray-blue irises.

Realizing she’d assumed incorrectly based on the couple’s body language and marks, and wanting to prevent the situation from escalating, the cloaked figure shouted, “Please, stop! I mean you no harm.” 

Calming down, and open to an enemy of their enemy being their friend, the perplexed and intrigued Maggie and Alex gave the cloaked woman a chance to explain herself. 

After she lifted back her cloak’s hood with an extra set of filmy hands she conjured with magic, the couple realized the pale, pointy-eared, and green-eyed woman was a light elf. Mouths open at how they were being graced with the presence of a powerful being known to not venture out of its oceans-apart territory on a normal basis, the couple relaxed even more and, though in an awkward position for talking, prompted her to keep going. 

Relaxing some as well, but still on edge due to the strangely familiar pheromones in the room and her mission, the light elf explained, “I thought an omega was being raped. My name is Lena Luthor, and I’ve come to rescue my little omega cousin, Sam, from this dead bastard and his thieving family. Although she has the blood of Norns, light elves, and Valkyries flowing through her veins, Sam is still learning how to control her powers, and they apparently kidnapped her as well as a big group of pre-magic elflings. Once untied, will you help me find them all?” 

Given the visions she’d seen when suckling her wife’s _veil_ , Alex’s jaw dropped impossibly more in response to what the stranger-turned-family said. Meanwhile, Maggie was dealing with triggers of the same thing happening to her as a child and, outside a few quick flashbacks, preoccupied with figuring out what was going on in her wife’s mind.

Realizing how strange her request must have sounded to a pair of tied and naked strangers whose property she’d trespassed onto, Lena kept going and begged, “I know we’re strangers, and it’s a lot to ask, but please consider my request. Sam never got to meet her sister or their parents due to all of the corruption Roden, his family, and the gods have instigated. She’s all I have left, and my light almost went out forever after Eliana died and nobody could find my other cousin’s body. I’ll give you anything you ask for.”

Soon after Lena stopped speaking, Maggie and Alex realized they had become untied more quickly than anyone they’d known ever had; apparently, all three powerful women’s requests had worked together to free the couple in a seconds-long speech rather than hours. Considering their movement was now more free and their mission aligned with the light elf’s, the raven-haired and auburn-haired warriors independently came to the same conclusion. Then, after checking in with each other through a knowing gaze they’d perfected over the years, Maggie and Alex nodded in unison. 

Wrapping themselves in the bear blanket they’d hung outside before (which had somehow gotten into the nook), Maggie and Alex slowly raised each other up off the ground. Then, as Maggie hugged her wife and cradled into her neck for comfort one last time before they suited up for battle, Alex asked Lena to do the most important thing she could think of.

“Could you help us figure out why my wife doesn’t remember being your cousin, a Norn’s daughter, and Sam’s sister?”

Lena and Maggie alike looked shaken by and in doubt of the dots Alex connected, prompting the lightning bender to explain her reasoning. 

“When I was mating Maggie minutes ago, I had visions of the life she had as a child. Things I know she couldn’t have known, given we’ve been inseparable for years. I saw her mom die of heartbreak over her and her sire, _Nornablu_ , not coming back to her. I didn’t know Sam lived after being born, though; the visions didn’t go that far.”

Crying tears of joy, and desperate to hug her long-lost cousin with her cloaked arms, Lena handed over the other pups to the rest of Luna’s family: Theros (Ludo’s wheat-coated husband), Crux (Avriel’s brown-coated wife), Muriel (a gray-coated wolf who was Luna’s other half-sister and Avriel’s full sister), Dante (Muriel’s black-coated husband), and Hoyt (the pack’s senior leader and Luna, Ludo, Avriel, and Muriel’s dark gray dad). As the two women would learn later, the worried pack had tracked down Luna when she hadn’t returned as planned, then had heart-to-hearts with Axel and her to address past tensions while the couple was in the nook. Their post-talk time spent getting to know the pups had been interrupted by the berserkers coming in, though; as the pack guarded a still-recovering Luna and litter, Axel wrapped the rogue alphas in hellfire, and Lena (who detected a struggle from afar using her magic) burst through the back door in time to help get the pups out and finish the ravenous trio off with her magical bow and powers. 

As Lena wrapped an equally teary Maggie in her arms, then Alex (given their mating marks), Maggie choked out a request before realizing the impact of her words.

“Could you and Sam be present when the litter Alex and I just made is born? I want our daughters to know my side of the family, too.”

Eyes forming saucers at the realization, Alex howled, squealed, and pumped her fists in surprise and happiness, accidentally letting the black bear rug fall to the ground and unveiling their bloody, sweaty, and essence-coated bodies as she did. The lighting bender’s bashfulness over her faux pas was too much for her wife and their newfound cousin to bear, leading the elf to giggle and the partial Norn to kiss the alpha on the cheek. Once Lena approached, she watched in surprise as her long-lost cousin brought their hands together atop the blue sun marking enveloping her belly button, then laughed as she heard a mix of howls and tails bumping against the nook in celebration. 

“Let’s go show those sons of Fenrir our families and friends won’t be fucked with anymore,” Alex said, inner alpha ready to roll out and end their people’s suffering. 

Maggie nodded and hugged her wife at the proposal, ready to kill their enemies and reunite with the little sister she’d somehow forgotten about. 

Lena hugged them again and nodded, then added, “You two can shower off, but there’s no need for you to wear armor or clothes. I’ll teach you how to use the dragon powers running through your veins as we fly over and attack from above.”

After Alex and Maggie gave Lena a confused look, the pale elf followed up with, “Oh. I thought you both already knew about the powers, given you had dragon eyes when I burst in. _Nornablu_ gave them to you both and me when she nursed us all from her bosom. They’ll come in handy when we lead the elf army coming from the sea and the army of the dead standing outside.”

Still in shock over what they just heard, the couple looked outside and saw their property filled with perhaps a thousand newly-released dead souls Axel was working to keep in line. 

The couple had apparently summoned all of the people Roden and his family had killed from the underworld, leading the gods to panic and prepare an army of their own.


	10. Chapter Seven -- Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nervous to post this part of the next chapter because I had some pretty serious writer's block and and am struggling with some perfectionism concerning this story. Please offer feedback if you want something changed, but I hope you enjoy this chapter. <3

As Maggie and Alex showered quickly, a million thoughts flooded their nervous and self-doubting yet battle-hungry and action-oriented minds. 

_What can this army do, given most of the members in it are dead and probably weren’t trained in fighting when alive?_

_What will our plan for attack be, given we have this army of strangers and another coming in?_

_How are we going to lead everyone to victory from above if we don’t know how to use our dragon powers well?_

_What about the babies and wolf pups? How will we protect them, and what if we lose them?_

_What if one of us dies? Or both? Will we be able to come back from that, or will we be separated for forever like Eliana and Nornablu were?_

_Why the hell did Roden, his family, and the gods conspire against our family, friends, and village? Can they truly be stopped, given their powers and whatever extra upper hands they have?_

Fortunately, those questions and more would be answered via gifts and talks with each other, Lena, Axel, and people they didn’t expect to hear from ever again. 

As the warrior-artists finished their shower, they were very surprised to see a stack of books had materialized on the bench where they’d made love and put their black bear rug. Alex was especially shocked at their appearance, given Aruvandil (the same god who’d given her the nook and all the books filling it) had never left presents outside the enchanted building before. 

Intuitively, and based on their training, Maggie felt they should divide and conquer as far as spending their precious pre-rallying minutes went. Specifically, she figured she should check up on the pups, survey their troops’ capabilities, and go through dragon powers lessons with Lena while giving Alex time to sift through the new books. Every fiber in her being hoped her wife could find something to help them overpower their enemies so they could combine and apply their collective intelligence.

After kissing Alex goodbye and letting her return the favor as well as cup the litter just starting to grow beneath the blue sun mark, the auburn-haired lightning bender immediately opened the first book in the stack. Then, she felt a crinkled, heavy piece of paper fall on the tops of her wet feet before she could begin reading the title. 

Bending down, she picked it up, turned it over, and began reading its contents.

_My dearest Alex,_

_My spirit feels the unrest inside you and your people, as do many sympathizing gods and other beings in our world. I cannot tell you everything you need to know directly, lest anyone intercepts this note. However, I can leave a puzzle. Look through your eyes and others’ to restore peace and make sense of the pieces._

_All my love, and evermore grateful for our friendship,_

_Aruvandil_

Perplexed by the nature of the note and how she didn’t see anything more on it, Alex began searching through the other books, hoping to find puzzle pieces or more indirect answers inside them. However, after nothing stood or fell out immediately, she revisited the note and reread it. Something deep inside her spirit moved when she read the body’s last line. 

_Look through your eyes and others’ to restore peace and make sense of the pieces._

Mind churning, Alex immediately started looking at the titles of each book, hoping to find some puzzle pieces before she was called in for dragon training and army assembly.

_Trepidation of the Spheres: How the Moon and Sun Fell in Love and Learned to Dance with Gravity_

_Kinsukuroi: How Repairs with Gold Make Japan’s Broken Pots More Powerful_

_Eyespots: The Art of Distraction in Land, Sky, and Sea Creatures_

_Winged Beasts and Where to Find Them_

Alex didn’t know what certain words in those titles meant (given, as she would learn later, Aruvandil made deals with future-controlling beings to get books on concepts and countries which wouldn’t be created until hundreds of years later). Thus, she scratched her head and made a thinking face after viewing each. 

However, after reading the last two titles, she remembered something Lena had said before: apparently, she and Maggie had dragon eyes.

“Eyespots . . . Aruvandil said I should read with my eyes and others’ . . . sky creatures and winged beasts . . . like what Maggie, Lena, and I need to be to lead the battle . . . of course! Maybe I can try reading the note through dragon eyes. How do I get mine to come back, though?”

To answer that question, Alex thought back to what must have made her dragon eyes and Maggie’s manifest that morning. 

She remembered feeling more protective and possessive of her wife than ever before, mainly because they had been so violently and unexpectedly interrupted while mating again yet, in a way, for the first time. Somehow, perhaps because of what she saw while suckling Maggie’s _veil_ , their new positions, or how they broke the window, the fireworks her _gunnaragen_ shot inside Maggie’s belly felt completely different than they did the previous night. For some reason, them coming together in that new way made new life while their previous night together did not. 

As Alex mentally relived her morning with Maggie, she subconsciously flipped the paper over and over using her index and middle fingers. An inkblot forming on the top of the paper’s blank side immediately shifted her attention, though. It was a dragon eye with handwriting which wasn’t Aruvandil’s fading in below it.

_Alexandra Artemis Danvers (henceforth called by her universe-given name, Moon),_

_I am sure you and my daughter, Magdalena Soleil Sawyer (henceforth called by her universe-given name, Sun), have many questions in this dark time. Hopefully, you have met my niece (Lena Luthor) by now and have begun assembling your troops for battle. Regardless, there’s so much I need to tell you, yet so little time for all on Earth who are about to challenge the tyranny and division Thor and others have created in the heavens and your village._

_My universe-given name is Skuld, but you, Sun, and Lena were raised to call me Nornablu. I was ganged up on and captured because the gods and my sister Norns (Urth and Verthandi) felt threatened when they found out about my offspring with Eliana (my true love, a concept many of them cannot grasp). Their insecurities arose because, after Sun was born, I saw visions of you and her bringing this period into a golden age which didn’t revolve around them, with Lena and countless others from the seas, skies, and earth fighting alongside you and Gravity (my second born) pulling you all in._

_Our opponents thought they could change fate by manipulating memories of the past (all the times your mother had me nurse you as a child because she couldn’t, Sun’s memories of Gravity and of Lena coming to live with us after her parents and brother were killed, and Eliana’s memories of me), attacking you, and keeping me trapped in time. However, the logic of those who turned against us was deeply flawed. You and Sun have fixed ends due to how you are destined to become the most powerful entities of your time, but are still free to be shaped and shape how you get to those ends. The strength within you both and your allies is more than enough to assure you victory, but you must use your gifts and provisions wisely._

_I know you, Sun, and Gravity have all been -- and may be further -- broken in different ways. However, consistent with the second book Aruvandil and I worked to get you, I can assure you there is a gold binding your pieces in ways which none of your opponents will truly be capable of breaking._

_Hoping all of us will meet and dance together one day,_

_Nornablu_ _  
__Mate of Eliana_ _  
__Sire to Sun and Gravity_  
 _Temporarily Relieved Head Norn_


	11. Chapter Seven -- Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your encouragement, everyone. Experienced much less writer's block with this chapter. :)
> 
> P.S. This one is for Chyler (who recently came out as not straight, but hasn't labelled herself). She's my hero, and I feel the same way about Katie and Flo. <3

While checking in on Luna and Axel’s pups, Maggie realized the omega was getting a little overwhelmed with nursing and watching all twelve pups by herself (given the other wolves had gone outside to help Axel keep the army of the dead from wandering away). Lena would have helped out the new mom as well, but was out on the grounds before the other wolves came out, such that she was gathering intelligence via her powers and from as many interviews and behavioral observations as she could. 

Thus, after petting and humming to the wolf some, Maggie asked to take four pups for a time and put them in a nursing sling she made using a spare shawl from the hideaway house. Grateful for the offer (especially because the taken pups were Hafiz and Hayward, the rowdiest of the alphas, and Abelard and Eagle, who kept holding back so their smaller siblings could eat), Luna thumped her tail against the bed and licked Maggie’s hand, confident her new family member would watch over the little ones the same as if they were her own. However, based on the wolf’s body language and the warrior’s new ability to see creatures’ dreams as if they were hers, the tradeoff was that, unless Alex’s hands or someone else’s were on Maggie’s newly sun-marked belly, it would be reserved for Luna’s fluffy yet fierce head. The gesture made the mom to be tear up and never want to leave the house (as messy as it was from the birth, fighting, wolfpack’s visit, and other occurrences of that morning). 

However, Maggie managed to roll off the bearskin-covered bed and walk out onto the grounds at just the right time; Lena was walking right in her direction, as was Axel. Both had completed as much intelligence work as they could (given the time they had), but were somewhat nervous to share the intelligence they’d picked up on.

Maggie was a little too possessive of Abelard and Eagle to let Lena nurse them right then (given the omega was gifted to Alex and Eagle favored Maggie’s milk over anyone else’s, Luna’s included). However, seeing Hafiz and Hayward seemed to respond to Lena’s touch better, she was fine to hand them over to the light elf (who readied her breasts and cloak for nursing using magic). 

Once Axel had a moment to see and ghost-lick the pups, she cut right to the chase and shared her grim findings on the army of the dead. 

“Unfortunately, given they didn’t know much about fighting while alive and haven’t been trained during their time in the underworld, planning anything heavily tactical will go nowhere with this group, even though its members are all reasonably to very intelligent. Their hollowness also prevents them from forming any sort of body shield, but they can scream like absolute banshees. That might make a very interesting and intimidating deterrent for our enemies.”

Lena nodded her head in agreement as Maggie’s fears were confirmed. Not wanting the group to lose hope, though, she chimed in with some good news on the elf army coming in as well as some curious findings Axel hadn’t picked up on (due to the different sets of questions both had asked). Right after beaming and cooing at Hayward and Hafiz (who started quieting down due to them becoming drunk off her charmed and potent neon green milk), of course.

“Although bereft of tactical knowledge, the army of the dead possesses vast knowledge of your village’s layout, weather conditions, hidden passages, and social networks. Many said they would follow Alex, you, and us to whatever end this battle brings because of what Alex’s family has done to help their loved ones escape to build a new life. I shared as much as they and Axel could tell me with the other elves coming in via our crystal necklace network, and that group should make a more informed landfall in about an hour.”

After pausing a few moments to let that information sink in for Maggie and Axel (who were each donning their respective thinking faces), Lena continued.

“I never stopped carrying your crystal necklace, either, Maggie. You forgot it on our bed the day you disappeared, but you can have it back now. Eliana reminded me to give it to you when I saw her among the army of the dead. She and Alex’s grandmother would like to speak with you, if and when you’re ready.”

Maggie stopped dead in her tracks at Lena’s last sentence. On the one hand, every fiber in her being wanted to reconnect with the two raised spirits. However, the tanned warrior and mom to be felt hesitant to act on her desires, knowing the group was running out of time to get moving and many people in the village might already be suffering (given the game typically started at the exact same time each year, rain, shine, or other bad weather be damned). 

Thankfully, able to identify her cousin’s emotionally torn microexpressions after all these years, Lena assured the warrior-artist she didn’t have to choose between herself and everyone else; the light elf army had been able to cast a large-scale spell making time in the village and its surrounding acreage slow down to a caterpillar’s crawl until they could receive a reason to stop from Lena or, if she died or became unresponsive in the crystal network somehow, their highly trained spy hawks. That time expansion would allow Lena to cast spells to protect the pups and Luna, then train Maggie and Alex to access their dragon armor and the more intuitive aspects of their dragon powers. 

As if on cue, Alex came running toward them with the books in hand as Maggie made up her mind, shouting their names and more in time with every other breath and step. 

“MAGGIE! LENA! AXEL! I’VE FIGURED IT OUT! THE BOOKS AND NORNABLU’S MESSAGE WILL HELP US WIN! WE CAN DO THIS!”

Not knowing what Alex was talking about, the trio gave the huffing and puffing alpha the chance to get closer and explain. 

“Aruvandil sent me books on battle strategy, animals, and the universe as well as a note from Nornablu which said Maggie is the sun incarnate, I’m the moon incarnate, and we’re all going to start a golden age together . . . without our enemies around to mess it all up. We’re all broken and may be further broken in different ways once this battle begins, but our army can distract Roden’s family and their allies while Lena’s army attacks from behind. The pups can be transformed into adults for a time and Luna can be healed via incantations written in one book, so they, Axel, and the rest of the wolfpack can fight alongside us . . . within a fanned out butterfly formation the dead can make. We can absorb knowledge of how to be a dragon by drinking a more experience dragon’s blood, too. We really can win, together!”

Surprised at the new information Alex provided, and grateful their independent research on how to fight had reached similar conclusions, the group took a moment to let it all sink in. Then, Lena partially shifted into dragon form, transformed some leftover milk leaking from her into what Maggie and Alex needed to drink, split it into two mugs she conjured, and squeezed both women’s shoulders before receiving Abelard, Eagle, and the marked book. Maggie and Alex watched as she and Axel ran off to make the transformations happen, then turned to each other again.

“Would you mind if we talked with my mom and your grandma first? Lena’s army has slowed time in the village to a near standstill, and something tells me we really need to do this.”

Alex was stunned to hear her grandma had escaped from the underworld, but was even more curious to hear how Eliana had done it (given she’d seen the elf-Valkyrie trapped in a special unit there while suckling Maggie’s _veil_ ). On the same page as her wife, but unable to form words yet, she nodded, took a tanned hand in hers, and let their intuition guide them toward the two dead who longed to see them the most. 

The couple, Lena, and their allies didn’t have nearly as much time to start moving as they thought, though. Apparently, to the crystal network’s unawareness, the gods and Norns had caught onto something changing the course of what they wanted to happen in the village, prompting them to mobilize and start investigating the situation. Also, freaking out due to the massive hostage situation in front of them, Sam and Kara’s powers had activated before the large-scale had taken place, putting the blonde guard in the position of having to soothe the nine-year-old before their strange situation turned lethal.


	12. Chapter Seven -- Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your patience, everyone! Had some writers block with this fic again and started a new fic a few days ago, but am back now and will be posting another three chapters ASAP. :)
> 
> Until then, please enjoy and make predictions about what will happen during the training, what the upcoming battle will be like, and more. Spoiler alert: at least one major character will die during the fight.

While Lena was turning the Danvers Dozen into scrappy, wiser, and battle-ready adults who could fend for themselves and each other, Alex and Maggie finished drinking their dragon’s blood and took a deep breath together before approaching Granny Danny (what they used to call Alex’s grandma when visiting her grave site) and Eliana.

For Alex, the deep breath was a way of coping with the nerves of meeting her mate’s mother for the first time and preparing for whatever the two spirits had to tell them. For the sake of everyone involved in the conversation and the looming battle, she really hoped Eliana would like her, give them further encouragement and/or information to win, and bless their marriage, mating, and pregnancy. 

For Maggie, the deep breath came from nerves over seeing her mother for the first time in about a decade, talking to a visible form of Granny Danny’s ghost, and wondering how they would react to her being married and pregnant so soon. Would her mother remember her after all this time, given she’d been locked away and the other Norns had messed with her memory enough to distort her love for Nornablu? Would Granny Danny be the feisty yet caring free spirit Alex always raved about (despite having limited time with her as a child)?

Hearing their collective deep breath, Eliana and Granny Danny turned toward them, then smiled, waved, and cried shimmery ghost tears in response to seeing the couple. 

Wooshing forward to ghost hug her daughter, Eliana made herself as solid as she could and incredulously whispered, “Maggie? My little Maggie, all grown up? And alive? I waited for word of where your spirit was for years, but never could find out. I thought something was wrong with my head before and after I died. Everything in my memory felt so fuzzy, but now . . . it’s like all of my time in the underworld was a very bad dream. It’s so good to be awake again. Missing you tore my heart out.”

Surprised at how her mother’s spirit felt as warm as she remembered her body feeling, Maggie leaned into her embrace, rubbed circles on her back like she used to, and choked out, “I missed you so, so much, too, mama. I didn’t die like you were led to believe, though. I was kidnapped after Nornablu’s lightning show got sabotaged, and Alex has been taking care of me ever since. Our memories of who we are and where we came from did get distorted, apparently by the same people who messed up my birthday and made you think I was dead. I’m so sorry you had to . . . go . . . like that. And that I forgot about Lena and never got to meet Sam.”

Crying a mix of sad and happy tears, Eliana choked out, “It’s not your fault, honey. It’s okay. This spirit has been telling me a lot about hearing your voice at her grave and says Alex is her granddaughter, but who is Alex to you, aside from battle buddy and protector? I hear you both and Lena are about to lead us against some gods and rather corrupt Vikings. Have you accessed your crystal powers yet? Also, who is Nornablu?”

Unsure of where to start, Maggie leaned against Alex for support, then exchanged a look with her mate asking the pale lightning bender to speak while she thought of more to say.

Clearing her throat, and smiling shyly, Alex started answering Elian’s questions while acknowledging her grandmother’s presence and knowing smile.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Eliana. Maggie has told me so much about you for years. We’ve been friends throughout that time, but she proposed to me yesterday, and we’re wives and mates now. We were planning on inviting the people we care about to a ceremony and celebration after stopping a horrible game our enemies play every year, but we had no idea you and my grandmother were going to be able to rise from the dead again. I would have asked for your blessing and Nornablu’s, but had no way of knowing how to. You both have been locked away in different places in the cosmos since Maggie got kidnapped, and we’re going to fight the people who did that and made Maggie forget who she was. The same people who killed my grandmother and all of these people, and the same ones who have now kidnapped Sam.”

After pausing to let all of the news sink in, Alex moved forward, only to pause again. Recognizing the mix of uncertainty and need in her granddaughter’s face, Granny Danny nodded while donning the same determined face Alex usually had, encouraging her to do whatever she needed to.

“We want to take down the same people who wiped your memories of and separated you from your mate and true love, Nornablu. The one who sired Maggie and Sam. The one who just sent me a letter on how much she misses you,” Alex said, taking her mother-in-law’s confused yet willing head into her hands. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, the pale warrior and mom-to-be let the thoughts of what Maggie’s  _ veil _ had shared with her that morning run through her mind, intuitively knowing Eliana could see everything she could. 

Mouth hanging open in a mix of shock and arousal at what she’d seen, Eliana stuttered, “S-s-so . . . it’s t-t-true? The feelings of emptiness over something I couldn’t name are . . . r-r-real? I have a mate who’s unwillingly been gone for a decade, and we have two love children together?”

Maggie and Alex nodded as Granny Danny knowingly cocked her head and looked at Maggie’s mom in sympathy. The three of them hugged the woman as she let years’ worth of ghost tears out into the cosmos, then pulled back, per Maggie’s prompting.

“You and Nornablu also have at least one grandchild on the way, mom. Granny Danny is going to be Great Granny Danny later this year, too, if all pans out,” the caramel-skinned artist, reader, and fighter choked out while cupping her the area around the sun on her tummy.

Ecstatic, Granny Danny and Eliana moved forward to congratulate the couple and shower Maggie’s belly with affection. Then, for the first time, the elder Danvers cut in to say something.

“I never thought having grandchildren who were made in love and able to be born free was possible. You both make me proud and have my blessing. I’m sure Jeremiah and Eliza will say the same things, if they haven’t already. Do call on me when your litter is born so I can be there. Oh, and please, call me Sabine if you wish.”

Relieved to know her past, and ecstatic about the future, Eliana seconded and expanded on what Sabine just said. 

“Please call on me and accept my blessing, too. Let’s win this war so our newest family members won’t have to fight it in the future. So all of us -- Sam, Lena, Nornablu, and our extended family included -- can finally be together.”

“Love you all, ya sad sacks ruining my afterlife party,” Sabine cracked, trying to stop everyone from crying with a little bit of her usually spicy humor.

Beaming, and hugging Alex longer than she had before to convey her gratitude and acceptance, Eliana said, “Welcome to the Sawyer family, Alex. I love you all, too, and can’t wait to see you become parents and share your lives together. Go figure out how to use that crystal and the armor popping up on your bodies before Mama E and Granny Danny are no longer able to let you both go again.”

Chuckling, then shocked to realize they were donning light, scale-patterned, clawed, and steel-like armor, Maggie (donned in gold and dark blue) and Alex (donned in black and red) shared their soft and temporary goodbyes, then went running back to meet up with Lena (who, after finishing the spells, had watched the happy moments while leaning against the hideaway house). They might not have learned everything they wanted to from the talk, but they got all they needed out of it and were more emotionally ready to fight than ever.


	13. Chapter Seven -- Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being patient. Felt sick after posting before and needed a few days to recover, but am better. Hope you enjoy and get excited! More to come the week of July 4. :) <3
> 
> Warnings: Some foul language and, at the very end, a mention of rape

Lena was a mix of happy, proud, and amused to see her eldest cousin and her mate running toward the hideaway house in the unique dragon armor which had manifested on their bodies as they’d talked with Eliana and Granny Danny. 

As the pair got closer, she couldn’t help but compare their armor’s colors and shapes with her own (which was also steel-like and similarly cut, but emerald green in some places and clear yet reflective like a diamond in others, such that onlookers could have easily mistaken her for a mirror in some contexts). The significance of the color differences wouldn’t be clear to them until they got further into their training and started the war, but the fundamentals of learning how to use dragon powers were the same, so the elf decided to stick with those to start and modify her approach based on how quickly the couple learned them.

Right after Maggie and Alex had the chance to freak out about how grown up and fierce the pups looked as a proud and healed-up Luna and her equally proud, supportive mate laughed with amusement, of course. 

“Who’s a good fighter? Who’s gonna bite Roden’s family in the ass and balls today? Good job with gripping and tearing at our late enemies’ clothes, puppers,” Alex asked and praised with affection while starting an enthusiastic game of tug-of-war with Abelard and the three gray siblings closest to her side.

Meanwhile, the other temporarily grown pups eagerly awaited their turns to play as Eagle sat on Maggie’s feet, playfully nuzzled and pawed at her belly to get her to join in, and buried her head under Maggie’s armor to get close to the babies after smelling pregnancy pheromones gently wafting from where her sex was covered. Maggie smiled down at the wolf pup who’d always chosen her over everyone else and was happy to skip out on the playing for a time so they could share what might be their last chance at closeness. The thought of Eagle, the other nineteen living pack members, and her other loved ones possibly dying made her very sad, but her new ability to connect with animals’ minds meant Eagle could see and feel her need to be cheered up. Maggie couldn’t help but giggle after the wolf dog’s tongue got stuck to her belly due to the electricity coming from her womb. The beta’s dopey, lopsided, and partially numb smile surrounded by a lion-like tuft of fur standing on end made the caramel-skinned fighter smile as much as she could in their situation. Once done, she crouched down, patted the ground to get Eagle to lie down, then rested against the frazzled, furry gray pup as they watched the tug-of-war game go on for about a minute longer.

“Okay, okay, break it up! It’s time for me to school Alex and Maggie on using their most basic dragon powers,” Lena shouted with glee, then said in a lower, more serious voice.

Maggie was a little sad she didn’t get to join in on the fun, but accepted the necessary change, melted into Alex’s hug from behind, and asked, “And my crystal necklace?”

Lena nodded vigorously and quickly in response, then outlined what she was going to teach as the wolf and wolf dog pack looked on, thumping their tails with excitement over what they were about to witness.

“First, I’ll help you understand why your dragon armor manifested and teach you how to make it come back on demand. Then, given you both started transitioning in your eyes this morning, I’ll show you both how to completely transition into your dragon forms. We’ll cover fighting on four feet, beating your wings, flinging your tails, getting your claws to come out, and breathing fire. Once we’ve done all of that, you’ll learn how to beat your wings, hover for a moment, and touch back down. Hopefully, we’ll eventually learn what our different armor colors mean and how we can combine them to lead everyone to victory, too,” Lena previewed with a mix of confidence and uncertainty. 

Fortunately for Lena, their armies, and the village (which was starting to experience a time spell reversal which the elves hadn’t picked up on yet), Maggie and Alex had read about dragons on and off for several years. Specifically, they were able to picture what Lena wanted them to do without her demonstrating the desired behaviors as much. However, Maggie had to excuse herself more than once for what she called “pee breaks”; in reality, the mix of cuteness and sexiness Alex exuded when happily bouncing around on all fours, spinning freely in the air, and burning as well as clawing the absolute shit out of several targets turned her on more than she could keep quiet about. The pale elf and human warriors were starting to get concerned during the fourth “pee break” in under an hour and a half, but more than believed Maggie when she said each one had to do with the pregnancy after she burned a target Lena conjured to ash on the first try when it shouted a threat about killing the litter. 

Maggie had tried to channel the leftover sexual frustration from her heat -- which, despite her being pregnant, was still continuing for some reason -- by defeating each conjured target as violently as possible and visualizing what Alex mating her when they were in dragon form would feel like. During her breaks and first flights, visions of them running through the woods, making up their own mating dances, and just ravaging each other while flying in spirals and raking the earth from its roots flooded her mind and inner armor. To prevent herself from getting splinters and otherwise injured while releasing her frustrations in the woods, she stayed in full dragon form, then shamelessly rubbed her needy spots against four trees (given she ended up acid burning, unrooting, and otherwise demolishing one per break). 

Maggie wasn’t alone in her frustration, though; Alex also noticed how her wife had become fierce and sexy in new ways, such that she couldn’t stop staring at her sweat-coated, scaly, and rippling muscles or the ice in her eyes and breath as she attacked and defended. From the beginning of their training, the couple noticed Lena’s armor made her particularly well-suited to fight in the woods and when in the skies, but in front of various plants and grasses; however, it took time for them to realize Maggie’s armor made her much more well-suited for fighting in the water, light, clouds, and snow and Alex’s made her much more well-suited for fighting in the shadows, bogs, and soot. The poetry of their contrasts and her wife’s sheer beauty, strength, and focus definitely made her uncomfortably hard over time, even though she tried to fight it by focusing on the impending war. 

Pleased at how quickly Maggie and Alex had grasped the basics and discovered some aspects of their unique powers (blizzard breath and cloud casting for Maggie and shadow casting as well as lava vomiting for Alex), the clear and green forest dragon returned to her usual elf form. Then, she informed the couple they were all going to take a quick break. She would go check on how arranging the troops into battle formation and explaining battle tactics was going for Axel and the living pack members, then check in with her elf army coming from the sea. Meanwhile, she wanted Maggie and Alex to come up with motivational speeches to encourage the troops. Lena promised to teach Maggie how to access her crystal upon returning in about fifteen minutes. 

However, given their pent up sexual energy, Maggie and Alex were struggling to think of anything to say. 

Unable to stand or crouch in awkward silence anymore, Alex decided to excuse herself for her own “pee break” (in which she intended to masturbate while in dragon form so she wouldn’t have to shift back). Maggie shifted back into her previous form, stayed behind, and tried to distract herself from watching her wife go into the woods by seeing if she and the crystal had any intuitive connection. 

Something about her childhood -- a previously lost memory, daresay -- flashed before her eyes a few seconds after she held the crystal (which started glowing different colors) against her forehead. In awe of what she saw, and wanting to share it with Alex first, she transitioned back into her draft horse-sized dragon form so she could fly overhead and find the pale lightning bender amid the trees and riverbends. 

She’d get completely distracted in a new way upon finding her wife, though.

Sweating, groaning, and heaving from exertion, the black and red dragon was on one side of a river bank and rutting into what looked like an overturned, partially immersed log. Maggie winced at the thought of her love getting splinters on the dragon version of her _gunnaragen_ because, as they learned from training, any pain they felt in one form didn’t just go away when they changed to their other form. Fortunately, however, Alex had been wise when choosing what to let out her frustrations on; the log was filled to the brim with cool peat and water which hugged and squelched against her in a similar way Maggie’s sacred place ( _Oolagen_ ) had. As Maggie honed her vision and got closer, she realized that fact for herself and breathed a sigh of relief; the peat oozed out of the log in small and runny, then large and irregular, trickles as Alex rutted into and out of it. Biting her lip harder each time Alex flexed her wings, hips, and butt with uninhibited force, Maggie had never wanted to be a log so badly in her entire life.

Given how pungent and far-reaching her heat pheromones had become, Alex smelled rather than heard her wife approach. As she slowly opened her rut-hazed eyes, she saw Maggie’s soft yet hunger-blown ones on hers. Then, in just seconds, she felt the blue and gold dragon’s scaly forehead gently meet hers, only for it to be gone so Maggie could slowly lick her wife from the sensitive area between her nostrils to the equally sensitive area between her eyes. 

Alex had unconsciously stopped moving because she wanted to savor the tender moment; however, Maggie more than made up for it. Knowing they had very little time and were very pent up, she raised her heavy and spiky tail, turned around to show her wife a reason to dismount the log, then joined her red and black love in the river. The just-dismounted dragon was a mix of confused and aroused when Maggie mounted and started rubbing her essence against the parts where her back spikes and hackles had receded, but understood when Maggie took her wife’s _gunnaragen_ in both front paws and started cleaning it in the river. 

The shadow fighter started getting impossibly harder as her equally supple wife’s claws gently raked down her highly sensitive, throbbing, nearly clean, and -- because full dragon form added thousands of muscle, bone, and tissue pounds -- even longer and thicker penis. The soft strokes and how Maggie was gently nipping her neck and shamelessly panting with each movement were sweet revenge for Alex in a way. Growing up, many alphas had teased her about how she’d probably be so small, weird, and damaged that she would never be able to get a mate or concubine via the game. Though she used to feel bad about her body being so different, this moment solidified how she was right to stop caring about their opinions; she and Maggie had and were things beyond those simpletons’ wildest dreams, and they completely accepted each other. The legacies they would leave via their actions and children would say plenty about them.

Maggie’s ministrations were over before Alex knew it, though, such that the blue and gold warrior, reader, and artist was on all fours on the edge of the riverbank, moving her tail aside again, and inviting her wife’s mount with a mix of eye and head movements. Tentatively, Alex mounted and slowly pushed herself all the way inside her wet and waiting wife, nibbling the sensitive, gold-scaled underside of her neck and holding her equally sensitive, gold belly to make the moment feel safe and loving. Although needing to come more than ever before, Alex could’ve stayed that way all day, pressed closely into her wife as if time was nonexistent. However, a mix of her instincts and Maggie’s tail and hip nudges giving away the fast, hard pace she wanted made the lightning bender snap in the best of ways. Maggie making it okay for her to be dominant sometimes made accepting that side of her much easier, so she gradually set a grueling, delicious pace of her own.

Sliding against the cool riverbank peat with her belly down, her claws raking the earth, her neck and back being showered with aggressive affection, and her _Oolagen_ stretched out and pounded into impossibly more was meeting every fantasy Maggie had had as they’d trained. Although staying in her body grew harder as seconds sped by, she couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride at how Alex was losing her long-held feelings of fear and shame at being dominant when intimate. She wanted them to have so many more of those healing and soulful moments. So many firsts to put on the black bear skin hanging up in what she hoped would be their home and the babies’ birthplace. 

At that thought, Maggie realized her heat-riddled mind and body had played tricks on her; based on how strong her need had been, she’d forgotten she’d been impregnated just hours beforehand. Knowing her wife, though, she wasn’t scared about their lovemaking negatively affecting the babies. The realization just made the moment that much more special because, if anything happened to them, Maggie knew she’d be able to hold onto this moment and all the others leading up to it. She’d tell or otherwise show the babies how special their sire was and how much they were wanted from the start. 

Once Alex heaved into Maggie a final, impossibly harder time, she came hard and hot inside the gold-scaled belly, roared deeply, and accidentally coated three trees and some bushes in lava vomit as she lost control. Aroused, amazed, and relieved by the sight, Maggie came hard as well, screamed to the treetops, and accidentally froze the water around them into what looked like an ice fortress. As her wife finished and they caught their breaths, the ice started melting and cooling their sacred places, allowing them to separate. They entwined their necks, rubbed gently against each other, and took a few deep breaths to simulate all the times they’d cuddled and hugged before flying back to meet Lena.

Fortunately, they landed back on the training field just as Lena was urgently flying their way. She didn’t even take the time to land, though; instead, she beat her wings to keep hovering and shouted an urgent message down to them.

“Maggie, Alex! Thank goodness you’re back. We need to get everyone moving now; the elves coming in by sea sent a dire crystal network message. Somehow, their large-scale time spell has been reversed, and the game is set to start in an hour. We’re going to have to move in immediately, and Maggie’s going to have to rely on her intuition and whatever I can share on the way to the village to tap into her crystal. We’ll give our motivational speeches while flying over instead of beforehand. Everyone knows what the plan is now, so come with me!”

Shocked at how everything was happening so much more quickly than expected, the couple raced to the skies and followed the green and diamond dragon out to the front of the army, flying high and hard as their entrance signaled the spirits and pack to start running. 

Both portions of their army would need to give the fight everything they had. Thor himself had shown up to the village and -- along with Roden’s family, the Norns, and other terrible gods -- was devising the order in which new captives would be sent onto the stage to be bought, traded, raped, married, and/or killed off. However, the rules of the game were different this time; like the fresh elf and other captives, people who might know the whereabouts of Maggie and/or Alex were going to be forced into the game. People who sold the couple out would receive prizes, including their top captive picks and their lives being spared. Anyone who refused to would be punished immediately and in ways never witnessed by any in the village.

Not one known for patience, Thor opted to have Sam and several of her closest friends be the first new captive group auctioned off. Kara and Jeremiah were going to be the first alphas ever entered into the game, and Eliza was going to go through the game a second time.


	14. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for staying tuned, everyone! This chapter ended up being much longer and more complicated than I first planned, but I hope you enjoy it. It answers several questions concerning what Kara, Eliza, and Jeremiah have been up to this entire time. :)
> 
> Trigger warnings: Mentions of rape, death, and abuse as well as graphic depictions of violence

As Alex, Maggie, Lena, the wolf and wolf-dog pack, and the raised spirit army started running and flying toward the Vikings’ village, Kara, her parents, Sam, and Sam’s friends were all forced to attend what might be their final breakfast together with Thor himself as the guest of honor. 

The bound Kryptonian only went along with the coerced meal because the guards who kept her and others locked away explained her enemies’ youngest alpha had captured Maggie and Alex and would kill them and all the other captives if she refused. Not knowing Roden was dead and that her sister and now sister-in-law were actually free, safe, and more powerful than anyone threatening her, the blonde alien-raised-partial-Viking kept most of her powers at bay. Specifically, she didn’t fly at, blast her laser vision at, or attempt to throw things at her new enemies -- Thor, the gods who supported him, and two creatures she’d never seen before -- and the family she’d hated since landing on this planet years earlier. Despite feeling weakened by what bound her wrists and ankles, she kept her ice breath at the ready and used her super hearing to listen in on her enemies’ conversations, wanting to see if she could gather anything on how to beat them and help her family as well as her newfound elf friends.

The previous night, Kara and her family had stayed up much later than usual, but for different reasons (which ended up in them being captured separately). 

Kara had been staying up waiting for her sister and Maggie to return to cuddle and read with them one last time before the game started. When Jeremiah and Eliza asked where the only child they’d been able to conceive had gone, the loyal and caring blonde (who they loved just as much and often let off the hook more than Alex, given all she’d lost) covered for her sister and the captive turned family (who, to Alex’s amusement and annoyance, also got more breaks if she got into trouble). Specifically, they immediately believed Kara when she said the generally inseparable duo went out stargazing one last time together in case the next day’s game proved unfavorable for them. 

After all, the caring parents had a lot of other things on their minds; many of the camp’s children and omegas were hysterical the night before each game, and that night was more emotionally charged than any other they’d seen. Partially because of the fierce lightning storm going on outside, partially because rumor had it the game’s rules were changing for the worse, and partially because Jeremiah found out their escape program had somehow been outed to Roden’s family. Thus, both had packed up some essentials for their daughters, the other camp members, and them to start evacuating as many as they could. The only reason they didn’t ask Kara to help was because she’d fallen asleep around midnight, and they hoped her getting some rest would allow them to rest early in the morning as she took over guiding their horses and carts away from the place which had been a mix of hell and heaven over the years. 

However, when Kara had awoken from a deep slumber about four hours later, her parents, sister, and campmates were nowhere in sight. 

Rather, she’d been placed in some kind of holding cell with a bunch of children she hadn’t interacted with before, including one about Maggie’s shade and build with powers as strong as her own yet -- based on the child’s lack of control and precision -- not as refined. The girl dropped the door she’d haphazardly unhinged and stopped trying to attack the guards standing outside the cell when they said they had someone named Lena in custody and would kill her if the girl didn’t stop what she was doing. Based on the caramel-skinned stranger’s shocked and scared little face, Kara could tell she cared a lot about whoever Lena was. Knowing they’d be able to get out if if they could band together, Kara (who was bound up in some low-grade version of Kryptonite, the one thing she learned she was allergic to when venturing out with Maggie and Alex) sought to know more about who the girl and Lena when the different sets of guards went on breaks and off shift. 

“I’m sorry they stripped you away from your loved ones, too. I don’t know where my parents and sister are, either, or even where Maggie is, but the guards threatened all of them just as all of you were being brought in here. I was sleeping last night, then woke up here, bound up in . . . all of this . . . without knowing how or why,” Kara confessed, trying to draw in the scrappy little thing (whose nose scrunching and other facial expressions were somehow familiar to the tied up blonde).

The nine-year-old narrowed her eyes and peered at Kara suspiciously, then cocked her head while trying to get a read on what the blonde was all about. She became much friendlier after putting part of her necklace to her head to see if the older stranger’s intentions were sincere or sinister, though; the clear-turned-blue hanging work of art had confirmed what her intuition had picked up on. Being younger and new to trusting her gut, though, she needed the same kind of reassurance Lena would normally provide. 

“Sorry to hear about your family and Maggie. I had a sister named that once, but she died before I was born, so we never really knew each other. My mama died after I was born because she lost Maggie and our sire on the same day. Lena’s my cousin, and she raised me. She’s all the family I have left, considering her brother and parents died a long time ago, too. ”

After Kara gave her a sympathetic look and scooched closer to show she wanted to know more, Sam kept going, feeling at ease with the blonde and after her friends shook their heads in approval of what she wanted to say next.

“We were all outside playing in a meadow near our homes in the forest when we all smelled something funny in the air, fell asleep, and had dreams of these strange people with red eyes, dark auras, and angry looks charging at us. We didn’t know who they were or what they wanted, but almost everyone’s crystals stopped working for a time after we were captured. I was able to call Lena for help through mine because I woke up somehow, but the signal got interrupted, and we’re here now because she might not have gotten my message back then or at all. These are my friends, by the way. James and Kelly are the twins over there in that corner, Nia is the one sitting in front of that rotten apple crate, Iris and Barry are the betrothed ones chained to opposite walls, Selina and Diana are the cousin pair in the other corner, and Kate’s the one sitting closest to me.”

Kara and the captives greeted each other as best as they could in their respective restraints, smiling and waving shyly to show they also meant no harm. 

Being Sam’s closest friend and crush, Kate spoke up next and asked, “So, what’s the plan for all of us getting out of here and rescuing everyone else?”

Donning their best thinking faces, everyone in the group tried to remember what the different escape, attack, and defense strategies they had learned were. They started throwing around some great ideas (especially given their novice war training statuses), but realized they were pretty limited in several ways. Namely, they didn’t know whether and how much their powers would help, what their enemies’ capabilities were, where they and their loved ones were being held, or why they had been brought to the Viking village. Having grown up in the village, Kara gave guesses on who their enemies were and why the elf children had been brought into the village, then gave the most honest yet child-friendly explanation of the game she could. To say the kids were scared and scarred by it was an understatement, though. 

To take their minds off the game, Kara shifted the conversation to have them negotiate ways of communicating without speaking so they could stay connected during the breakfast, but not be detected. She and her new elf friends practiced the techniques before the current guards took breaks and changed shifts again, getting it down pretty quickly in that time (due to how smart and determined they all were). 

Then, while the guards were gone, the captives all got the chance to discuss and, if possible, show off their powers. Barry could run across water and could move very fast, as could Diana (who could also get crafty with rope, fly, detect different smells more easily, see whether people were telling the truth without using her crystal, and throw large objects). Iris could make herself invisible and control plants, Nia could disguise herself by shifting her appearance with her mind, and Selina and Kate had various animal-like powers (mimicking cats and bats, respectively). James could grow taller and shift into a metal-armored forest guardian, and his sister Kelly had fierce mind-reading, knife wielding, horse whispering, and archery skills. 

In sum, Kara was honored to be among them and Sam (who, aside from having super strength, was learning to fly, bend gravity, see people’s and animals’ dreams, and take on the powers of others she touched if needed). She was also more confident they could combine their abilities and bust out of there, but the guards interrupted their planning before they could finish by yelling for them to be quiet and to stand up; Thor, the guests of honor, and Roden’s family (collectively called the Halsaviks) were ready to eat and requesting their presence.

“Please be safe and sound, mom, dad, Alex, Maggie, and everyone else. We’ll do what we can to save you, or die trying” Kara whispered under her breath while leaning her head back against the wall one last time before getting up and following her friends into the dining hall they were being ushered to, trying not to throw up from nerves and the Kryptonite getting under her skin. 

As Kara, Sam, and the other elflings all entered the great hall where they were to eat, the loyal blonde eldest of the group noticed there were three guests of honor she recognized: Thor (a dark blonde, ruddy, and muscular god who stood about seven feet tall and was holding a small lighting bolt as well as a hammer), his brother Loki (a black-haired and pale god holding a ball of dark energy as well as a skull who was comparatively more lithe, but just as tall), and their brother Baldur (who wasn’t as muscular as Thor or as lithe as Loki, but still had a moderately muscular build and carried an energy-radiating shield, an intimidating spear, and the reins of a then-absent war horse). Then, she noticed two female-looking creatures who could have passed as sisters (due to their dark blue complexion, honey-colored eyes, braided brown hair, and possession of clocks) sitting next to the brothers, but didn’t know who they were. Finally, she recognized the Halsaviks by their disgusting teeth, mohawks, red eyes, ruddy complexions, and bullying stares. Specifically, there were only five Halsaviks present: Gurenna (the only female of the group, yet an alpha rivaling Roden’s ferocity and penchant for violence), Buvhar and Bughar (twins who were more into strategic war planning than actually fighting), Dravin (who coordinated the location and gameday presentation of captives), and Bravaa (their father, who’d raped their sweet, resilient, and smart omega mothers so many times within a six-year period that all four eventually died from childbirth or internal trauma). 

Once everyone brought in from the dungeons as well as Kara’s parents (who were led in via another door) sat down, Thor stood from where he sat and made a mix of a snide toast and an explanation (which, though lengthy, ultimately wouldn’t get the results he wanted).

“Welcome, all, to this morning’s pre-game breakfast. In attendance as the guests of honor are myself (Thor, god of lighting and war), Loki (my brother, who governs mischief and some aspects of the underworld), and Baldur (another brother of ours, one whose penchant for war has gone deeply unnoticed due to his unassuming air). The two others at the end of our row are creatures who far excel our abilities, yet have graciously joined our quest to keep and restore order: Urd (a Norn who controls the past) and Verdandi (who controls the present). Finally, we have the Halsaviks (Bravaa and his children, Gurenna, Buvhar, Bughar, and Dravin) with us. We, the five guests, are most honored by and appreciative of their efforts to aid our quest as well, particularly through the games Kara and her family have witnessed many times and Eliza, Kara’s adoptive mother, even went through herself. Pity the blonde wasn’t an omega, though. Gurenna had quite the eye for her growing up, I’ve heard.”

Kara bit her lip and looked down at her empty plate in response to that last line. For the first few years of her life, Gurenna had been a sweet child and dear friend of Kara’s despite their places in society, mostly because Bravaa’s second wife (Quinn) had raised her well and the brute was usually too gone off to wars and conquests with his elder twins to see her. However, when Bravaa returned and saw the two young girls play fighting, he knew Gurenna’s potential for physical warfare outweighed his sons’, leading him to train her more intensely, ban her from seeing Kara ever again, and -- through a mix of rape and torture -- turn her into the monster sitting before them. Rumor as well as several moments in past games suggested the lone female alpha of the family was never able to get a proper erection again after what her father did to her and her mother, and Kara always felt somewhat sorry for her, knowing how far she’d fallen from grace. Kara could also sense something other than disdain or detachment coming from the alpha when their eyes met, but Thor’s continuance made analyzing that something next to impossible. 

“Now that introductions are over, I’ll make the reason you are all here quite clear. You are all going to be auctioned off first in this year’s game, meaning you must submit to the whims of whoever buys, trades, or otherwise acquires you. Any resistance will be met with the immediate and public rapes, tortures, or even deaths of your loved ones. We know about the escape program Jeremiah and Eliza have been running to get acquired omegas and their babies out of this village and even others across the sea, so we are punishing them by entering Eliza in the game a second time and entering her husband as the first alpha. Kara will be entered as well because she’s essentially useless to me, as is our little untrained, part-elf friend, Sam. Say hello to your two biological aunts, Sam; they sold you and all your friends out because you remind us of how your sire was just . . . a bit . . . too much . . . for us to deal with. It’s no wonder she left your mother, your sister, and you behind. What more could one expect of someone so . . . irresponsible?”

Sam was shocked when Thor mentioned anything about her family, especially how her sire was apparently the sister of the two Norns sitting in front of them. Lena had always told her nobody knew what happened to Nornablu, but that the amazingly powerful being was extraordinarily kind and that she deeply, truly wanted Sam. In fact, the pale omega recounted stories of how, other than when Maggie was born and Eliana agreed to marrying her, Nornablu had never been happier than when Eliana was pregnant again; the alpha had always wanted as many children as the elf-Valkyrie would give her and showed Maggie and Lena how to properly kiss, hold, and play with Sam before she was born.

At the same time, Sam and her friends all yelled in response to the slander, “You liar!”

In the seconds of silence which followed, Diana listened to what her truth-unveiling powers were telling her and cried out, “He’s wrong about Nornablu; she was the greatest among them powers- and ethics-wise, so they ganged up on her and took her away. You made my friend and her family suffer, and that’s what exactly you’ll get in return if the universe proves fair!”

Not sparing any time, Kelly shared what her mind-reading powers were telling her immediately by yelling, “And that’s not all he’s lying about. He doesn’t actually have Lena, Alex, Maggie, or any of our other loved ones captive elsewhere! Where in the universe’s name are they, you foul hellhound?”

After being taken somewhat aback at their resistance, Thor replied with a smug smirk, “Very good, children. Very, very good. You’re a mix of more wise and more stupid than I ever could have guessed. If we’d spoiled that part of the game for you in advance, though, how willingly would you have submitted to our guards and our . . . invitation . . . to such a grand meal?”

Thoroughly pissed at Thor and every member of his evil band, Kara started losing control of her heat vision and ice breath, letting both fly at them while screaming, “TELL US WHERE MY SISTER, MAGGIE, AND LENA ARE RIGHT NOW OR DON’T, BUT WE’LL BURY YOU REGARDLESS!”

Sensing Kara was losing control because her powers were the most obvious and threatening of those seated, the Norn sisters used their powers to stop the blonde’s from hitting their row. Specifically, Urd paralyzed Kara from across the room to get inside her mind and try to see where all Alex and Maggie tended to go in the past, and Verdandi created a translucent shroud of protection around the formidable row as her sister worked. However, like always, any visions concerning Maggie and Alex came up blank or blurry to Urd (which is why tracking down the pair via her powers alone proved a virtually impossible task for her over the years, even if she had all the pieces to do so right in front of her). Knowing that information, Thor had gathered the group together to get that information the only way his band could per a prophesy: making the group tell them more about the power couple and Lena (who was fated to help them and, in some ways, also obscured in Urd’s visions).

Seeing Urd’s expressions of frustration and disappointment, the ever-impatient Thor yelled back at the heaving and floaty-feeling super, “YOU ALL WILL TELL US WHERE THE GOLDEN THREE ARE, OR THE FOURTH AND YOU WILL BE THE ONES OBLITERATED HERE AND NOW! AAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!”

Just like that, a bright light, a deafening boom, and a white-hot heat filled the room, crushing the table the confused, angry, and worried captives had just been sitting and blowing them all back first into the surrounding walls. 

When Kara’s eyes started fluttering open again, she was face down on the ground, such that she could see bodies scattered around her and under various things which had fallen on them. Apparently, the roof had caved in on them all, and powers, weapons, fists, and feet had started flying at some point. 

Kara was torn between helping her mom (who was pinned underneath Gurenna), her dad (who was lying face down several feet away as well and bleeding from a bad gash to his head), and Sam (who the two Norns had somehow gotten to quickly and were trying to carry away). Though dizzy from the blast, Kryptonite cuffs, and smoke, she made a quick decision and tried her best to hold onto hope, not sure what would happen next.


	15. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your patience! Hope you enjoy this next chapter and keep reading. Hoping to write three more chapters after this one and an epilogue, but we'll see. :) <3
> 
> Enjoy, and be well!

Fortunately, Kara’s next move became clear to her pretty quickly.

Before the Norns could get too far out the nearest door with Sam, Nia changed her appearance into that of Roden’s still-fighting father and ran after them. A bruised and bleeding Kate as well as a somewhat limping Selena joined that hunt as reinforcements, changing into a bat and cat to go undetected. Hopefully, the three friends would be able to trick the Norns into releasing Sam without them all needing to fight (especially given the amount of power they could feel radiating from their friend’s traitorous aunts). 

Meanwhile, James and Kelly teamed up to help Jeremiah, such that the brother was shielding his sister and the unconscious man from further blasts and attacks as she worked to diagnose and heal the bleeding head wound as fast as she could. 

As Kara ran over to help her mom at a normal human’s speed (given she was still bound by Kryptonite handcuffs), she got glimpses of exactly how much chaos had erupted. 

Barry was literally running circles around Thor, working hard to deflect further lighting and hammer attacks from him while trying to stay alive. Diana had taken on Thor’s brothers to help Barry, but was struggling some due to how hard the blast had knocked her back while she was mid-leap over the table and how Loki smelled like rotting flesh. 

Like her betrothed, Iris hadn’t been hit by the blast at all due to a mix of where she’d been sitting and her powers. She had successfully caused a series of large tree roots to spring up through the floorboards and bind Roden’s father and brothers tight enough to prevent them from harming anyone, but the dark trio was fighting like hell to get out of the binds and even succeeding at points. 

Gurenna had somehow managed to escape the tree root snare and was on top of Eliza (who was fighting back and begging for her life just seconds ago, but quiet and compliant as Kara got closer). 

Still able to kick out some, the blonde super did just enough to get her friend-turned-enemy on the ground and into a pin while saying, “Get off my mom, Gurenna!”

To her surprise, the brown-haired and somewhat blast-dirty dirty woman didn’t fight back at all. Rather, she submitted by craning her neck and asked for something, taking Kara aback.

“Do it, Kara. Kill me. Please?”

Kara was about to fill her request without question and despite its difficulty for her, but stopped when she saw a torrent of blood and a tattered, charred animal robe on Gurenna’s back. Things her mom couldn’t have caused, even under the best of circumstances.

After moving her former friend’s hair and limbs out of the way, she could see her wounds were definitely caused by Thor’s massive lighting strike. Just as the blonde super was examining her mom and finding no wounds, Gurenna answered the various questions brewing in her mind.

“I didn’t want your mom to die because of Thor, so I jumped in front of the blast to stop it from getting to her. I tried to shield your dad, too, but didn’t leap far enough to cover them both. The version of me sitting at the front technically died upon impact, but everything in the underworld is different right now. This is little Gurenna -- the one who died after her dad raped and tortured her -- talking and realizing everything my older self has done. I can feel how angry, tormented, and hurt she was, but also feel how -- at some level -- she never stopped caring about you and your family.”

Shocked, and unable to move in spite of being surrounded by violence, Kara let the news sink in as her true old friend continued. 

“Please, Kara. I won’t last very long in this body. My older self and I were too scared to kill it off after the blast hit us, and she’s been scared to do it for years. Forgive us before you do, though. Promise me you’ll forgive us . . . for what we’ve done . . . and not done . . . for who we’ve become.”

Crying over what they had and how much her old friend had clearly suffered for so long, Kara shook her head yes vigorously, then prepared to snap Gurenna’s neck to make her death a quick one. Right before she made the snap, she sobbed out, “I do forgive you, Gurenna. Come back to me in some way, but better that time. No more hurting innocents. Or being hurt and not coming to me for help.”

Right after Gurenna shed some tears over being forgiven, nodded yes, and kissed her old friend’s suntanned hand, Kara kissed her deeply on the lips while snapping her neck so she would go out with pleasure rather than pain. Then, the super wrapped the brunette’s limp and bleeding body up in part of their tablecloth and placed her under the table, hoping to properly bury her later. 

Eliza shed a tear and took a deep, broken breath at Gurenna’s passing as well as Kara reuniting with them both. Then, she wrapped up the forgiving blonde in a hug and kissed her sweaty and dirty forehead, glad she knew at least one of her children was safe for the time being. 

Their little moment didn’t last long, though. 

Just as Kelly and James were helping a resuscitated yet understandably dizzy Jeremiah to his feet, Loki, Baldur, and Roden’s remaining family members were collectively starting to overpower Barry, Diana, and Iris, trying to make their way over to Kara as they fought back against the tree branches and whirlwind traps set up for them. Kara stood over her mother and was ready to die if her powers were too weakened for her to fight off their attackers, despite the floored omega’s desire to be the one doing the protecting. 

Just as Kara took what she thought might be her final breath, a high-pitched and piercing scream started sounding from somewhere, followed by the sight of filmy creatures flooding the hall’s back half and flying right toward Roden’s family. A shocked Kara and her parents vaguely recognized some of the faces of those flying in, but the lack of familiarity with the spirits utterly terrified the bruised and bleeding elf children (who all huddled together defensively, not sure whether they’d make it back to their friends and loved ones after all).

All of a sudden, one scream turned into a yell of, “Step away from my family, you horrible killers and kidnappers! The time for you to pay for what you’ve done is now.”

Another voice followed the first before anyone could react, yelling “How dare you take these elf children from my old village, thieves! Things in the underworld are changing, and we’ll make sure you know it.”

Kara, her parents, and the elf children as well as their enemies were all taken aback by what the two spirits yelled at first. However, after taking another look at the first spirit, Jeremiah was the first to respond.

In disbelief, the eldest living Danvers asked, “Mom? Is that you?”

Sabine quickly floated over to her son, Eliza, and Kara, nodding yes, looking at them longingly, and taking them into her see-through arms. 

“I’ve missed you three so much,” she said with a more gentle tone, wishing she could hold them again in the way she did while living.

Meanwhile, the remaining children all looked at the second spirit and, judging by her words, spirit world clothes, unfamiliar face, and pointed ears, guessed she was someone from their village who’d died several years ago. Probably before they were born, given elf children could typically remember faces at a much earlier age than most human children could. Still, there was something about her which intuitively felt familiar to them, and their crystals changing in response to the woman’s presence told them everything they needed to know.

Looking into Diana’s eyes to make a silent pact about trying to read the spirit’s mind, Kelly bravely asked, “Who are you, elder elf?”

Smiling shyly at the question as well as the children’s crystals changing to a color indicating they were in safe company, the spirit warmly responded, “My name is Eliana. My mate was -- or, hopefully, still is -- Nornablu. Our children are Maggie and Sam Sawyer, but I died right after Sam was born because I thought I lost Maggie and my mate. Do you know Sam or where she is, by chance?”

Shocked that they were getting to meet their young friend’s long lost mom and that the also long lost sister she’d mentioned was apparently still alive, the children stared and gaped at each other, not knowing what to say in return.

Loki interrupted the moments between the spirits, the equally shocked living Danvers trio, and the elf children, however, not giving anyone the opportunity to further explore what Eliana said.

Looking just as smug as the now-missing Thor had, the dark god cracked a dirt-stained and maggot-filled smile. Then, after looking at his remaining brother with amusement, he cocked his head and said in a darkly playful manner, “Well, well, well. Eliana. How and why did you escape from the underworld? We had you in such . . .  _ fine _ . . . quarters. Ones to . . . .  _ die _ . . . for, daresay. No matter. Watching the rest of your family and this village burn will leave you begging to return and never see anyone or anything again.”

Before Loki, Baldur, and the Halsaviks could move, three dragons appeared in the sky above the hall and moved in for a swift landing, each crying in turn as they got closer.

“The only ones who are going to burn are those responsible for all of the games, kidnappings, and killings!”

“This will be the last time you ever speak to my mother except to beg the universe forgiveness for what you all did to her!”

“You’ll never hurt another elfling or other being, so long as I live and am able to help stop you!”

Squinting at the sun and dragons between her fingers, Kara asked in disbelief, “Alex? Maggie? Did you . . . is that . . . but, how?”

Instead of answering her question, the dragons landed in front of their loved ones in protective stances. Before their enemies could get any closer, the dragon whose voice Kara didn’t recognize cast a ghostly green extension of her claws, cutting off the super’s Kryptonite cuffs and freeing her from the equally green rock’s effects.

“Thank you,” Kara managed to squeak out before the room broke out in chaos once more. 

“You’re welcome, Kara,” the dragon turned ally quickly returned, motioning for her, her family, and the elflings to follow her, Sabine, and Eliana out to give Maggie and Alex the floor and, pray tell, find Sam before it was too late. 


	16. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone! Apologies I have been away from this story longer than planned. Had some family and personal health issues, but am getting back into this story. Hoping to end it in about three chapters after this one.
> 
> Please comment or drop a kudos if you can. Had some confidence issues when writing this chapter, too.
> 
> Also, please check out my page to read my other stories as you wait for this one's next chapter.
> 
> Thanks for being here, and enjoy!

Before landing in the hall alongside their family, friends, and spirit army to begin telling off Loki, Baldur, and the Halsaviks, Lena, Maggie, and Alex had devised a plan of attack which was more consistent with their changing circumstances. 

With the couple’s approval, the elf tapped into her crystal network and advised her army to split into three parts, such that a third of the elves would work with about half of the spirit army to evacuate as many innocents as possible via secret portals the Danvers family had used for years. The next third would be responsible for working with a quarter of the spirit army to kill off as many Halsavik-complicit alphas and other village members as possible. Finally, the remainder of elves were told to rush in to give the trio and remainder spirits more intelligence on an explosion they’d seen off in the distance. The powerful female leaders wanted to mitigate any risks they could in advance, and that tripart plan seemed the best they could do at the moment. 

Giving a motivational speech seemed unnecessary because several new spirits had popped up in the army and, other than their first-hand accounts of new horrors the day’s game were going to bring, plenty of the spirits were already seething and chomping at the bit when their targets’ names -- collectively, the Halsaviks -- came up when the trinity delegated assignments. 

In sum, the collective anger the group felt was more than enough to get the spirits sprinting alongside as well as outside of each circle of furry, bloodthirsty killers. 

Naturally, the pups were still trying to understand what exactly the Halsaviks had done; however, their parents’ explanations and the spirits’ were plenty to rile them up, too, leading them to start foaming at the mouth in rage. Abelard and Eagle were especially angry, given they were so close to Alex and Maggie. The twins which had bonded well with Lena tied for third over how angry they got, but the rest of the siblings were most motivated by how their sire had been killed off well before her time. They wanted blood as payment, and they wanted it now.

Fortunately, after Maggie and Alex’s friends and family had left them alone to fight off Loki, Baldur, and the remaining Halsaviks, the Danvers Dozen, their moms, and their extended family came bounding into the room as backup, eyes wide and mouths foaming in rage. Clearly, they’d only just begun with letting off their steam; several of the pups were dripping with blood because they had ripped the arms and legs off of the crueler village alphas who tried to get in their way. Abelard had even jumped up and bitten one in the face as Eagle incapacitated the unexpecting dolt from behind. Lena’s twin pups had gotten cut up pretty badly when challenging one of the worst offenders, but were still going strong because of their determination, stubbornness, loyalty, and adrenaline. 

Surprised at the pack’s entrance, but not wanting to show weakness of any kind, Baldur chose to respond with as much smugness as his brother and said with a sly smile, “Well, well, well. Given you’ve brought all these reinforcements, I guess Thor and Nornablu didn’t accidentally transfer as much of their power to you as the records about their fight all those years ago say they did. No matter; that’ll make restoring our rightful place as the most powerful beings in this world all the easier.”

With a mix of anger and curiosity, Alex bared her teeth and claws while moving in front of her family protectively and shouting back, “What the hell are you talking about?! Shut your disgusting mouth. I never want you to speak to my wife, our babies, or our wolfpack like that ever again. We’ll wipe the underworld’s floor and doors with your blood to make you pay for all you’ve done!” 

After turning paler than his usual pasty color at Alex’s words, Loki took the next turn to speak and said with fear and disbelief rather than his earlier arrogance and self-assuredness, “He wasn’t talking to her, your . . . _children_ , or your . . . _dogs_ , Alexandra. He was talking to just you. Did Nornablu not share what she prophesied about you before you were even born? How she did everything in her power to overthrow us, including make two Earth-born children without her sisters’ knowledge and breathe life into you -- her chosen successor -- when you were born dead?”

Before Alex could demand for the pale god to explain more, Maggie stopped her with a gentle yet fierce clawed foot on her near-surging foot and recited the poem her crystal memory shared with her.

“In the past, there were sky rulers three,

And now and in the future, whether chosen or made, three there still must be.

To rule the land is far from simple and clear.

Many loyal to the rules of old will resist and fear, 

But the just and merciful will always prevail,

Especially the ones whose loins bear or make themselves humble to a veil.

They will always bear or make the next three Earth keepers,

Finders keepers, losers weepers.”

In that moment, everything made sense to the couple. Nornablu’s sisters had targeted her because, to designate Maggie, Sam, and Alex the next three world leaders, she must have had a veil like Maggie did. Alex had submitted herself to Maggie’s veil before they’d conceived, so it was entirely possible they’d just made at least one member of the next ruling generation, and they still had time to make or designate the other two. Plus, Nornablu being trapped all this time despite being more powerful than the gods became clear; she’d lost the ability to fight off the other Norns and the gods after transferring her powers to Alex, seemingly to protect the then-seven-year-old from an apparently fearful and vengeful Thor. 

However, given Alex and Maggie were two of Nornablu’s chosen, had raised people from the dead, and were more powerful than the gods or remaining Norns, did that mean they could rescue Nornablu and restore her powers somehow?

Able to see the couple had learned truths their enemies had tried hard to keep hidden from them for so long, a still-fearful yet trying-to-be-smooth Loki replied as his startled brother and the Halsaviks looked on, “Ah. Very good, Maggie. You and Alex have . . . _figured_ it all out, it seems. We might not be able to kill you without consequence now, but we can most certainly make you suffer enough to make you submit and wish you were never born. Ahhhhhhggggghhh!”

And just like that, Loki waved his staff aggressively and sent out a wave of dark energy toward the couple and pack. The wolves and wolf-dogs all screamed in pain, thrashing about in response to the wave while trying to fight through it and break free from its heavy hold on them. 

Before rushing in with her claws bared and ice breath on maximum, Maggie screamed out, “No! Stop! Leave them alone!”

Alex was not far behind her, though, and launched herself right at Baldur and Loki, claws and magma breath at the ready. The Halsaviks were hopelessly frozen in place because Loki and his brother had quickly materialized out of sight and behind the trio to shield themselves from the attack, but Alex kept driving forward after using her magma breath expose the three evil men’s heads once more and swiftly as well as mercilessly slice them off. Given Lena and Axel had unintentionally taken her chance to kill Roden, she imagined taking revenge on him as well in that moment, making the gruesome sounds coming from the terrible alphas being torn apart all the more satisfying to hear. 

Before Loki and Baldur could materialize out of the room to be by their brother’s side or otherwise escape, Maggie managed to access her ability to take on others’ powers and materialized away from her mate fast enough to grab them. Once she did, she sank her claws into their backs, ripped out their spines as they screamed in terror, and electrocuted them using what she’d taken on from Alex toward the end of their mating. 

As the two were writhing on the floor and bleeding out, Alex knelt down, leaned in very closely, and whispered loudly enough for Maggie to hear, “I’ll see you both in the underworld shortly. Be gone!”

Very soon after she whispered that damning goodbye, the broken and bleeding brothers shut their eyes a final time. Then, no longer feeling threatened, Maggie and Alex shifted back into human form to comfort their wolves and wolf-dogs as well as each other. 

Once Maggie’s animal mind reading powers let her know the whole pack was reasonably okay and going to recover from the dark energy, the brunette warrior could no longer hold back her question.

“Does it have to be you who dies to save her? Isn’t there another way? You’ve already died once, and I don’t want to lose you again. _We_ can’t lose you,” she whimpered, looking around at the pack and holding her sun-marked belly as she cried. 

Although she loved everyone around her and knew from Nornablu’s message that they were more than powerful enough to defeat Thor and the Norns, Alex couldn’t help but feel torn over what to do.

She’d have to decide quickly, though. 

Unbeknownst to her two- and four-legged family, Kara, Lena, and the rest of their allies were all having a very tough time trying to save a naked and injured Sam from their most powerful three enemies (who were very angry to learn she was not the one who possessed or submitted to a veil and, therefore, could not designate them as the next most powerful trio). 

In sum, one way or another, someone was bound to die.


End file.
